Daddy Nearest
by Thursday's Dove
Summary: If there was one contingency Near had never planned for, it was becoming a father. Part 7 of series. **STORY IS ON INDEFINITE HIATUS.
1. Chapter 1

**This fic is part of a series - Please refer to my profile for where this falls in the timeline. This can be read as a stand-alone, but we are reaching the point in the timeline where things might start to get confusing to readers who pick up in the middle. I would at least go back and start with Gray Areas, but I don't think you will be totally lost if you want to start here.**

 **Hello and welcome! If you are just now joining us for the first time, then I thank you for taking the time to even read this. If you have been following along this entire time, then thank you for sticking around. I hope you are all prepared for more of a bumpy ride and more dark times ahead. I'm afraid I can't write purely happy things, so...**

 **That said, onward! :3**

 **-Disclaimer-**

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"Matsuda... Matsuda, for God's sake, wake up."

"Wha...?" slurred the man as he jerked and sat up sharply, blinking blearily up into the frowning face of his boss, "I'm-.. I am awake."

"You were sleeping at your desk just now. Again," said Aizawa, his arms folded.

Matsuda groaned, betrayed by the stiffness in his neck and the lines pressed into his face by the file on which he had fallen asleep. "Sorry, Chief," he mumbled, both exhausted and embarrassed.

"I need to see you in my office. Now. We need to talk about this."

Matsuda did not even try to argue. He knew he had been caught, as he had on multiple occasions over the last few weeks, and so he knew that this was coming.

The events of the last few weeks had taken their toll on him by this point - mentally, physically, and emotionally. This was by far the worst he had ever felt in his life – much worse than he had felt even after putting five bullets into Light Yagami almost fourteen years prior. Worse than the horrible depression that had nearly crippled him afterwards. Matsuda did not think he would ever be the same again, and he was sure no one would have disagreed with him. Anything that even remotely resembled the once optimistic Matsuda was diminished, leaving behind a sullen husk.

Not only that, but he knew his physical appearance was haggard at best. He knew he had some unshaven stubble on his chin from barely making it out the door in time for work that morning, as well as eyes red and swollen from lack of sleep. To say the least, he looked just as bad as he felt.

With a defeated sigh, he got up and followed the police chief into his office, where he was instructed to take a seat and wait while Aizawa fetched them both some coffee. Upon his return, Aizawa handed the younger man one of the cups and took his own seat across the desk from him. Matsuda gazed down into the cup at the fluorescent lights reflecting off the surface of the dark, bitter liquid. He did not feel like drinking it. In fact, the very thought of drinking any more coffee than he already had that morning made him feel sick to his stomach.

It was only after several minutes of uncomfortable and clearly indecisive silence that Aizawa finally spoke, "Matsuda, as I'm sure you are aware, this is just one of many incidents in the last few weeks of you falling asleep at work-.."

"I'm sorry, Chief, I'll try to be better.." he mumbled, unable to meet the other man's gaze.

"I'm not here to bust your balls," said Aizawa, "I know how hard you have been working – hell, we have all been pushing ourselves on this one. But we have had this discussion before. You need to take better care of yourself, and that means getting some rest, otherwise-..."

Matsuda jerked his head up, staring straight at the police chief, "Rest? How can I...?"

"You can start by taking the rest of the day off. I'll have Mogi cover for you, but right now I want you to go home and get some sleep."

All at once, Matsuda was filled with an anger unlike any he had ever felt before. He might have been able to compare it to the rage he felt when he shot Light, except this rage was for a completely different reason. He stood from his chair so rapidly that it caused said chair to tip over backwards, where it made contact with the ground with a loud bang. If that alone was not enough to startle Aizawa, then Matsuda thereafter slamming both of his clenched fists down on the desk should have been.

At the same time this was happening, Matsuda was shouting, "You want me to go home and _SLEEP_?! How in the _hell_ can you expect me to do that?! Sayu's killer is still on the loose! I'm not sleeping-.. No, I _can't_ sleep until we find him! I'll probably never be able to sleep again, so _fuck you and your sleep_!"

Aizawa remained seated from behind the other side of the desk during the outburst. Although he was sitting more rigidly than before, his overall demeanor was remarkably calm for someone who had just been yelled and cursed at.

"What, aren't you going to yell at me and call me an idiot?" Matsuda snapped when the other man did not react.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't think you are being an idiot – you are being human," he replied, "Which is what I am trying to say to you, so please sit back down so we can talk."

Chest heaving and teeth pressed so tightly together his jaw was beginning to hurt, Matsuda stooped to pick up his chair and all but slammed himself into the seat. He could feel Aizawa observing all of these actions, but he could do nothing to stop them regardless. Everything felt so raw and angry, and he was so worn out and broken down, it was impossible to keep it all in at this point. He wasn't even aware of half of what he was doing anymore, which was a bit disconcerting, but, again, he could not bring himself to care.

"I can't claim to know what you are feeling, but I know you want to get to the bottom of this more than anyone, Matsuda," Aizawa said, picking up where he left off as if Matsuda had just not had a breakdown right in front of him, "That said, you will not be of any use to us, to yourself, and most of all to this case, if you are exhausted like this. I want you take the rest of the day off, get some sleep, and then come back in tomorrow refreshed, so we can move forward with this."

"Chief-.. I can't do that. Not on this one," said Matsuda, his voice weak. He was barely able to contain any of his rampant emotions, but he'd be damned if he cried in front of his boss. Again.

"I'm afraid you don't have a choice, my friend," said the other man, pressing his lips together in a look that was both sympathetic and severe, "This isn't a request – it's an order. I promise we will call you if any more leads come up, but-.. Take some sleeping pills if you need to, just please get some rest."

"But, Chief, I-.."

"If you argue this any further, then I will take you off the case. As I've said before, we need everyone at their best right now, and you are not at your best in your current state. It's as simple as that."

Frustrated but at least somewhat understanding of his boss' point, Matsuda could do nothing but agree that he would go home and try to rest. When he left the chief's office, he felt like nothing more than a useless appendage to the task force - just like old times. It was with great reluctance that he gathered his effects and went home for the day, barely making it through traffic and up the stairs to his apartment before he collapsed on his bed.

Despite how exhausted he was, though, he still could not sleep. All he could do was lay there, drifting through a weird, semi-lucid state, thinking about Sayu. He bit down on his bottom lip, hard, to keep himself from crying at the thought of her, but it was useless. Before he knew it, he was weeping freely, drawing in uneven, shuddering breaths and replaying the events of that weekend over and over in his head. Her smile, her laugh, the sunlight coming in through the cafe windows and making her brown eyes glimmer like melted chocolate, even her blatant honesty as she told him she would need time to think about his proposal. And then, of course, everything that had happened after they parted ways that afternoon... How could someone do that to her, to such a wonderful, beautiful person whose only crime had been caring too much? It was just so unfair and cruel...

And perhaps even crueler than that - if there was such a thing - thinking repeatedly of the looks on the kids' faces when he had broken the news to them. And hearing Soichiro's wails and seeing Chihiro's shaking form, their denial of the reality of it all, all stuck on repeat in his head. Why was he the one who had to do it? Why was he the one who had to break their hearts and tell them that their lives would never be the same again? Aizawa was technically the one in charge – shouldn't he have been the one to do it? No, Matsuda was the one who was closest to the kids – he was practically their father, so they would believe and listen to him above all others. It made sense that he was the one who had to break the news to the kids that their mother was gone…

The kids…

He wanted to call them to check on them, truly he did, but he could not bring himself to do so at the moment. What else could he tell them at this point that would do them any good? It had been six weeks since their mother's murder and there had not been any solid, new leads in at least the last week. He hated to think it, because he was holding onto a stubborn, staunch hope that by some miracle they would come across something, but it seemed as though their mother's case was growing colder by the day. It was bad enough that they had to be stuck in some crummy, overcrowded orphanage while he waited for all this stupid bureaucracy to decide whether or not he could adopt them, but to have to tell them that they might not ever find their mother's killer… No, he could not do that to them. Somehow, he felt it would be better to wait until something new came up, either with the case or with the adoption, before calling them again. He was sure, at least, that Chihiro would understand and that she would explain as much to her brother. He was sure that they would forgive his lack of communication if only he could present them with some good news - as good as news could get under the circumstances, anyway.

Well, he had to do _something_ in the interim. Laying there and thinking about everything was not helping. It was not helping himself, the kids, or Sayu's case. It didn't matter what Aizawa thought - there was no way he could just lay there all afternoon and evening, doing nothing.

Without much thought, he gathered his keys, wallet, and mobile phone and headed out to his car. He drove as though he were on autopilot, zoning out entirely until he reached his destination.

When he arrived at Sayu's house, he took a breath before putting the key into the door, unlocking it, and opening the door. The silence that hit him almost caused him to choke up again. This house had once been lively and inviting, full of Sayu's care, love, and laughter. The mixed sounds of Chihiro's violin and Soichiro's various video game noises also used to fill the home, giving it the feel of what Matsuda could only describe as _home_. Now it was an empty shell, an echo of the lives it had contained within, now devoid of all the love and spirit that had once resided there - much as Matsuda felt anymore.

It was both a beautiful and a cursed feeling, being there. It was so powerful, Matsuda wanted to leave immediately, but he took a breath and began his search.

He looked over at the counter top where her effects had lain the morning of her disappearance. Of course, said effects were gone now, all brought in as evidence, but Matsuda could clearly see in his mind's eye how her purse, keys, and cell phone had been laying out. She had left them there, clearly intending on coming back for them, and yet she never would. Also beside all of that was the box he had given her the day before, contained within it a symbol of his feelings for her and the promise of a bright and happy future together. It was later revealed that the ring was missing, not only from the box, but presumably from her corpse. Nobody had seen her put it on, but-.. the ring was missing. In Matsuda's mind, above all else, it meant that she had put it on. She had been wearing it at the time she was taken. She had considered his proposal. She most likely would have accepted-…

No. Stop thinking about that. It was not helping the situation at all. There had to be something they had all missed, and Matsuda would not, _could_ not, rest until he found it. Even though the home had already been thoroughly searched and the crime at this point was considered a random crime of opportunity, Matsuda could not accept that as the end result. There _had_ to be something that would help lead them to her killer.. didn't there? He knew that cases went cold all the time and some families never got any closure, but surely that could not be the case this time. This was _Sayu_. She _had_ to receive justice. The alternative was unthinkable.

Matsuda spent the better part of two hours combing the house from top to bottom, searching for something, anything, that had not already been examined and considered by the police. For all his searching, nothing had turned up in any of the rooms so far. He was admittedly delaying going into Sayu's room, which had been her mother's old room, because he did not think he could bear to see where she had gone to sleep every night. Maybe he would open the door and see her lying there, asleep, and find that this whole ordeal had just been one big nightmare. That thought alone was enough to raise his pulse to the point where he had to close his eyes and just _breathe_.

Sucking in a breath, he pushed the door open and entered the room, cooled from lack of use. Of course, Sayu was not there, asleep or otherwise. She would never be there again, and Matsuda would never know what it was like to lay beside her. Maybe he if were to lay down on her bed for a moment and close his eyes, he could imagine that she was there. The whole bed still smelled of her - hell, the whole _room_ did - so it would not have taken much for such a pleasant thought to take hold.

But no. As tempting as that was, Matsuda did not want to fall into that kind of trap. It would do nothing to solve her case. Steeling himself, he began his search through her armoire, handling each of what were once her possessions with the utmost of care, all the while feeling a wet warmth behind his eyelids as he thought about the life behind them, thought about everything that had been stolen not just from the kids, and from Sayu, but from himself as well.

As he was pushing various things around in one of the drawers, his hand came into contact with something hard and rectangular. He closed his fingers around it and pulled it out, holding it up so that he could get a good look at it. It was a mobile phone. Just a regular old mobile phone, one that had gone out of style years ago. It did not look like any of the phones he had ever seen her use, though maybe it was one she had used before the two of them had reconnected on the third anniversary of her brother's death. He did think it was a bit strange that she owned an old flip phone, one with no slide-out keyboard, given how she preferred texting above all other forms of communication, but the strangeness of the thought was gone before he could really hold onto it.

Even so, the phone did make him curious for a reason he could not explain even to himself quite yet. Maybe it was because all of his searching had turned up nothing else so far, and so this one small piece of what had once been Sayu's life was all he had to focus on at the moment.

Whatever the case, his curiosity won out. He flipped open the lid and tried to power it on, but the phone was dead. There was not even enough juice left in it for the screen to come on before flickering right back off, as Matsuda had seen his phone do sometimes whenever it was out of power. But of course it was dead - this phone had not even seen the light of day since-.. who the heck knew when, judging by the lack of dust or any kind of smudge on it, which was another thing that struck him as odd about it. The phone was in pristine shape. Either she had hardly used it or had not used it for long, because there wasn't a single scratch on the casing and none of the buttons or keys were worn down as one would expect to see after repeated, long-term use. Perhaps it was merely a faulty product. But then why had she not exchanged it? Some sort of sentimental attachment to it, maybe?

Matsuda was beginning to wonder if maybe he was thinking about it too deeply when yet another strange aspect of the phone stood out to him. There seemed to be nothing special or out of the ordinary about it, but that was what struck him as strange. Usually Sayu had _some_ kind of fun embellishment on her mobile phone, be it a different-colored case, a sticker, or one of those little charms most everyone seemed to have. But not this phone – its total lack of any personal touches was what made it stand out to Matsuda. That added to the fact that the phone did not appear to have any manufacturer's details – no logos, no bar codes, no serial numbers, not even on the battery or inside of the casing where the battery was contained.

Now unable to halt his runaway thoughts, he rifled around in the drawer for the phone's charger and found none. After a bit of searching, no such phone charger surfaced. Weird – what had she done with the charger? Perhaps she had thrown it out by mistake while consolidating power cords, or perhaps it had stopped working and she had thrown it away then. Either way, it would be very easy in today's excessive market of power cords to obtain one that would get the phone working again.

Matsuda did not understand why he was so intent on getting this phone working again. Again, maybe it was the lack of anything else to go on. All he knew was that he felt as though he was on the cusp of something – he wasn't sure _what_ , just that it was _something_. It wasn't until he was back in the elevator at the station, on his way up to his floor, and barging unceremoniously into Aizawa's office that all the stray thoughts converged.

"Aizawa, I've got it! We need to contact L!" he declared upon his abrupt entry, half-way into a state of hysteria.

"What the-.. _Matsuda_?" the police chief grumbled, thoroughly taken aback by the sudden reappearance of the younger detective. "I thought I told you _go home_!"

Matsuda waved him away and approached him from the other side of the desk. "Did you hear me?" he went on, coasting right over his boss' annoyance, "I said we need to contact L! He can help us solve Sayu's case!"

Aizawa sighed, apparently resigned to hearing Matsuda out for the time being. "And how do you propose we do that? He cut off all communication with us years ago. We have no way of contacting him, if you remember," he said, giving Matsuda a pointed look. It had, in essence, been his fault that the World's Greatest Detective had decided to sever all ties with the Japanese NPA, after all.

But that did not stop Matsuda's enthusiasm either. "What if we _did_ have a way of contacting him?"

Nonplussed, the police chief's eyebrows came together. "What do you mean?"

Without another word, Matsuda produced from his pocket the phone he had found at Sayu's house and handed it over to his boss. Aizawa took one look at it and said, "What's this?"

"It's a phone I found at Sayu's. It-…"

"When?"

"Huh?"

" _When_ did you find this?"

"Like an hour ago. I believe-.."

"You were at Sayu's house within the last hour?"

"Yes, I just said that. Now, if you-.."

"Matsuda, I clearly remember telling you to go _home_ – not to Sayu's. What were you thinking?"

Frustrated, Matsuda blurted, "Who the hell cares what I was thinking?! I was thinking that we need to do something to find Sayu's killer and there's no way I can do that by laying around!"

"But I thought I explained to you why-.."

"Just shut up about that already and _listen to me_!" he yelled, and then took in a breath, trying to steady himself as his boss watched him in surprise from his outburst. "Please, just-.. just look at the phone. Just _look_ at it and then I'll leave you alone and go home. I promise."

Aizawa gazed at him for a long moment with his hard, hawk-like eyes before sighing and looking back to the phone in question. "Okay, what am I looking for?"

"Don't you think it's weird that Sayu had a phone like this?"

"Not really. It's probably an old phone of hers that she forgot to recycle."

"No, I never saw her with a phone like this before. It's not the kind she always used – she always used phones that were more geared towards texting. This one is primarily made for making and receiving calls."

"Then it probably belonged to her mother at some point and Sayu couldn't bring herself to get rid of it."

"No, her mom never carried a mobile phone. She thought they were ridiculous and only wanted to use the landline."

Aizawa sighed again, pressing his fingertips to his forehead in exasperation, "I think-.. Don't you think you are grasping at straws here? There's nothing about this phone that suggests it's some top secret spy phone, or whatever it is you're thinking. In fact, I'm quite sure this is all due to the fact that you _need to be home resting_."

"I'm _serious_. Think about it. It looks like a plain old phone, sure, but think about it. Why would Sayu have this phone? If you look at it, it's been very lightly used - moderately at best," he explained, and as he did so, Aizawa turned the phone over, following Matsuda's leads, "No scratches, no smudges, no wearing down of the buttons or keys. No personal touches like her phones always had. No branding, no logos, no any kind of identifying factors for the manufacturer. Not even on the battery. Just look."

Aizawa followed his lead and stared in concentration as he gently pried open the back of the phone, popping out the battery and seeing that there indeed was not any of what Matsuda had mentioned. While he was doing that, Matsuda took a breath and went on, "Now I ask again – why would Sayu have a phone like this?"

"Matsuda, I-.." Aizawa started, fumbling through his momentary stupor, "I don't-.."

"Think about who she was seeing. Think about who is the father of those kids," he breathed, feeling an immense sense of victory at seeing what he thought was a convinced look in the police chief's eyes. "I believe that this is the phone Sayu used to communicate with L – with Near. And I believe that once we get it recharged and powered on, we can use it to contact him as well."


	2. Chapter 2

**Woo, these first two chapters kind of wrote themselves! :D**

 **Also, small disclaimer - I'm afraid that the information presented in this chapter is not based on any professional knowledge on my part, it is merely based on what I have read online and from what my techno-geek husband has explained to me. So, really, if there is anything in this chapter that is technically wrong, then we can just blame him. I'm totally okay with that, anyway.**

 **Edit: I apologize for this, but I had to make a few small edits to this chapter so that it would fit better with future chapters I have planned. The changes are very, very small and do not affect the overall story - I doubt you will even notice. The edits I made will be posted in author's notes in chapter five in case you are curious. :)**

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Matsuda should have known better than to think that breaking into a phone belonging to the World's Greatest Detective would be as easy as charging the battery and turning it on.

The morning after his discovery of the phone, Matsuda spent roughly 30 minutes going through all the power cords at the station in order to recharge the phone. His first and foremost discovery was that because the battery had been left dead for so long, the phone was unable to hold any amount of charge and would not be able to be powered on until a replacement battery could be provided. Fine. Whatever. He would just take it to the lab, let them analyze what kind of battery was needed, and then he would pop in the new one and go.

But that turned out to be another struggle altogether. Without any sort of branding or anything to identify what kind of battery it was, the lab revealed that there was no way they could just plug in a replacement battery. They would need some time to thoroughly analyze the original, dead one - which was no easy task. After testing the voltage on it to make sure that whatever battery they put in it would not fry the phone as soon as it was turned on, the lab tech team sent the battery away to a specialized manufacturer along with the specs and the request to duplicate said battery as best as they could.

After two weeks of waiting for that to be accomplished, it was with great anticipation that the tech team was finally able install the new battery. As they did so, Matsuda and the rest of the team all held their breaths, half expecting the phone to explode or something right then and there. When it did not, there was a collective sigh of relief.

After that, Matsuda foolishly thought that maybe calling L would be as easy as turning the phone on and going through the call history or something, but what he was presented with instead was nothing of the sort. The first thing the phone asked for after it was powered on was fingerprint identification. If nothing else up until that point had convinced Matsuda that this was the phone Near had given Sayu so they could communicate, that request for a fingerprint to identify the user would have done it. Sayu had never locked her phone, as he had learned from the children after her disappearance. She was not nearly as protective of her personal information as she should have been, Matsuda thought, but then again, Sayu's chief concern was the children, and she would have wanted them to have easy access to her phone in the event of an emergency – such as the one where Sayu herself had gone missing.

It would be relatively easy to fabricate a fingerprint using the prints from Sayu's file, but then there was no clearly visible place in which to actually provide the fingerprint the phone was asking for. Any phone Matsuda had ever seen with that particular feature had a scanning device built into one of the buttons on the front of the phone; but then he had only ever seen those kinds of things on present day touch-screen phones, not on old, obsolete flip phones like this one.

This particular puzzle drove Matsuda to near insanity for several days, until he had the crazy idea that maybe _all_ of the buttons were for providing fingerprints. Aside from the numerical keypad, there were five buttons positioned around the outside of the phone - one that enabled the camera, one for voice command, volume up, volume down, and the power button itself. They were normal buttons that one might expect to see on any average mobile phone, with the exception that this was not the average mobile phone. Matsuda discovered that when he held the phone in his right hand, his fingers lined up almost perfectly with the buttons – one of which was on the top of the phone, three along the left side, and one on the right side, where his thumb sat. It felt natural, like the buttons belonged there, or like they had been placed in that particular arrangement for a reason. It was easy to imagine that they would have lined up perfectly with Sayu's hand, which would have been smaller than Matsuda's. Could it really be that simple, though?

After revealing his most recent find and his theory surrounding it to the police chief, he got permission to have the tech team fabricate a set of Sayu's right hand fingerprints for use on the buttons. Now, as Aizawa had only granted Matsuda permission to work on the phone on his own time, this did limit the time and resources with which he had to work. Luckily, though, a couple of the lab tech members were all too happy to assist in getting this thing working. It seemed they were pretty interested in (respectful of, even) the difficulty and ingenuity that had been used in the phone's protections, at any rate. Matsuda doubted they had ever experienced anything quite like it before. In other words, it was a challenge they accepted with great interest and enthusiasm.

Once the fabricated fingerprints were ready to go, Matsuda figured at that point that all he had to do was press each of the buttons while wearing the fingerprints and then that finally would grant him access to the phone.

He was wrong. Again.

While the phone did, in fact, seem to accept the fingerprints, it only did so so that it could then request a password.

Oh, hell. This phone was going to drive him out of his mind before this was all over. But of course that was what it was designed to do. Maybe it would have been easy for Sayu - or Near himself - to gain access, but of course Near would not have wanted just anybody breaking into it, so it had to be laden with various, multi-tiered protections. Well, Matsuda was not just anybody, and he would be damned before he gave up on it – not now, not after all their hard work up until that point, and certainly not when it came to what was at stake.

The phone was asking for a password that could be anywhere between two and eighteen characters long, and, naturally, could contain special characters as well as alpha-numerics, and was most likely case sensitive. Matsuda seriously doubted that Sayu would have used "password" or something as equally obvious as the password. The rest of the team agreed. Needless to say, this could take a while...

But Matsuda was not ready to give up there. With all the gods mankind had ever invented as his witnesses, he would show Near that he would not be deterred by all his fancy, high-tech puzzles. Feeling more amped than ever, he had the cryptanalysts take a look at it. They explained to him that they could jerry-rig something that would be able to brute-force the password by manually inputting one at least every 30 seconds, but rather than being excited by the news, Matsuda found their answer appalling.

"One every 30 seconds?!" he exclaimed, shocked by the small return. "I thought you guys had some thing you could hook the phone up to and have it guess like 350 billion passwords in a second or something!"

"Yeah, well," said Harumi, the head cryptanalyst, "That would be the case if this was a phone with all the current technologies."

"What do you mean 'current technologies'? This phone has fingerprint identification and a bunch of other complicated stuff!" Matsuda threw back, frustrated.

"But this little jack here," said Harumi, tapping the only jack on the phone, "Is only able to be used for charging the phone and for plugging in headphones - not that we have tried the headphones, but that is beside the point. The point is, older phones like this one were not designed with the capability to do any sort of data transfer by using the jack. It doesn't matter what other kind of alterations were made to the phone – the jack was left as is, probably on purpose. Ergo, we cannot simply hook up the phone to one of our password-guessing machines and have at it."

"But-.. but what if we broke open the phone? Couldn't you direct-wire it or something?"

"I don't think that's such a good idea."

"Why not?"

"Did you look at the scans the lab did of the phone?"

"Yeah…" Matsuda trailed off, unsure of where the other man was going.

"Well, then you'll know that the report says that the phone is filled with an unidentifiable substance and has been epoxied shut." Matsuda's silence prompted the other man to continue, "Which means that we can't open that phone. Even if we could somehow manage to get it apart without destroying it, then there's a chance that something inside of it might go off."

Matsuda blanched and blurted, "You mean to tell me that that little bastard gave Sayu a phone that was filled with _explosives_?!"

Harumi shrugged, obviously not as distressed with this knowledge as Matsuda himself was. "Or it could have been filled with lead, or something else that is obscuring the x-ray. Either way, it's not a risk we can afford to take."

Matsuda deflated, hanging his head for a second before saying, "So-.. the best you can do is to hook it up to something that can only guess one password every 30 seconds…?"

"Right. As you know, old phones like this one came out when texting was a new thing, so it takes time to enter in passwords manually. You have to wait for a second between each character before entering the next. I'm sorry, sir, but 30 seconds is the best we can do."

"So, one every 30 seconds…" Matsuda muttered to himself, holding up his hands and counting on his fingers, appearing to be in deep thought, "That's… what, 2,880 per day? So it'll take only, like, a week, right?

Harumi and the other cryptanalysts each raised their eyebrows at him, exchanged a look with each other, shook their heads without answering, and went back to work on the phone, leaving Matsuda there, dumbfounded by their reactions.

"Guys, wait," he called after them, "What about two weeks? _Three?!_ ...How many password combinations could there possibly be?!"

He later inferred from their reactions that maybe allowing only a week for their jerry-rigged device to come up with the correct password was a bit too optimistic. But he had to remain hopeful. He had no other options at this point. Besides, maybe they would get lucky and the device would guess the correct password much sooner than later. And he could only hope that after that, they would have truly gained access to the phone instead of being faced with yet another barrier. He couldn't even imagine what other kind of protection the phone might throw out at him after that.

Unfortunately - or fortunately, depending on how Matsuda chose to look at it later - either way never came to pass, because on the morning of November 30, 2026, Matsuda received a phone call that was as baffling as it was disheartening.

"What do you mean my application has been suspended?!" he barked into the receiver of his mobile phone while simultaneously weaving through traffic on his way to work. "I submitted all my paperwork to you guys well over eight weeks ago and you're just now calling to tell me-.. Tell me what, even?!"

He could all but hear the woman on the other end of the phone wince as she said, "I'm sorry to be the one to bear the bad news to you, sir, but all the director would say is that it's been suspended."

"Suspen-.. Why?! I work with the NPA! I have a clean record! What is the reason my application has been suspended?! What does that even mean?!"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Touta," the woman meekly apologized again, "But I am not privy to that information."

"All right, then, can I speak to the director?"

"No, sir, I'm afraid that's not possible."

"…Why not?!"

"The director is a very busy person-.."

"I don't care! If the director has the time to tell you to call me and tell me my application was suspended, then he can find the time to explain it to me himself."

"But, Mr. Touta-…"

"Look, I'm sorry for yelling at you, but please-.. Can you at least ask him to call me back or something? Please?" Matsuda pleaded, allowing himself to become just emotional enough to hopefully sway the woman into letting him talk to this asshole director, "This is very important to me. Those kids are very important to me. I've been around them from the time they were babies. I knew their mother. We were engaged to be married before she-.."

Now, Matsuda knew he was not very good at manipulating people or faking emotions (although in this case he did not have to try very hard to become emotional anyway), therefore he was genuinely surprised when it worked. He heard a sigh from the woman and then she softly said, "I will put in a request for him to call you back."

He would have felt like a great weight had been lifted off of him were it not for the fact that he had received that call in the first place. Still, he let out a breath and thanked the woman before hanging up and heading inside to get his day started. Maybe there would be a breakthrough on the phone – that would certainly brighten his abysmal morning.

It seemed the police chief was having an abysmal morning as well, because Matsuda met the man as he was rushing into the building, clearly arriving later than he would have liked.

"Hey, Chief!" he called, gaining the other man's attention.

"Matsuda," the police chief acknowledged as he held the door for the younger detective.

"Thanks. Man, let me tell you about my morning. First, I somehow burnt my toast-…"

"Haven't you been using the same toaster every morning for years now?" grumbled Aizawa as they passed the front desk.

"Well, yeah, but-.."

"Um, Chief, sir?" interrupted the man behind the front desk just as they were passing by.

Aizawa slowed down just enough to lend his ear, but was clearly still in a hurry. "What is it?"

"Mr. Matthews is here to see you. He got here just a few minutes before you did – I just sent him up."

The police chief's eyebrows came together in mild confusion, "He is? I thought he wasn't due in until 9:00…"

The receptionist shrugged. "Got in early, I guess. He had two others with him – one was his interpreter and I guess the other was an intern."

"Did they each get a visitor's badge?"

"Yes, sir."

"All right. Thanks," Aizawa sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "I guess I'll wait until after the meeting to get my coffee."

"Rough morning for you too, Chief?" Matsuda sympathized as they entered the elevator together.

Aizawa scoffed as he loosened his scarf from around his neck, but did not answer Matsuda's question. He instead said, "You should come with me, since this somewhat concerns you. Matthews is an outside tech specialist. Cryptology and Lab wanted me to contact him for assistance with that phone of yours."

"Really?" Matsuda said, feeling the tiniest bit better already. "That's news to me. What's up?"

"Brute-forcing the password in such a crude fashion is going to take too long - certainly more time and money than the higher-ups want to dedicate to it, considering we are not dealing with a missing person's case," he said. Aizawa quickly held up a hand to silence what would have been Matsuda's angry retort. "I'm not saying I agree with it - not in the least. I want to get this thing figured out, too."

"Thanks, Chief," Matsuda said, feeling grateful that he had Aizawa on his side. Out of anybody, the person whose support Matsuda wanted the most was Aizawa's, and he felt warmed knowing that he had it. "So, what's the plan?"

"Well, that's why we contacted Matthews. He's supposedly one of the world's leading experts on these kinds of things. Hopefully he will be able to come up with a more efficient way of getting into that phone to get what we need - either breaking the password, getting a phone number.. something."

"That's great!" Matsuda exclaimed as they reached their floor. The elevator doors slid open and the two men exited, heading briskly in the direction of Aizawa's office. "That means we'll be able to get into it and contact L in no time, right?"

"One can only hope."

"Man, that makes me feel so much better, especially since-.. Oh right, let me finish telling you about my morning."

"Right, right. The burnt toast?" Aizawa prompted, raising an eyebrow at his companion.

"Yeah, so, I burnt my toast, and then on the way into work, I get a call from the adoption agency saying that my application has been suspended! Can you believe that?"

"Suspended? Why?"

"I have no idea! The woman who called me couldn't tell me because this director guy wouldn't tell _her_. Sounds like a load of bull to me."

As they approached the door to Aizawa's office, which was standing partially open, Aizawa said, "I haven't gotten any calls or inquiries, so it must not be about you specifically."

"Well, if it isn't about _me_ , then what-...?" Matsuda said and then trailed off into a perfect, stunned silence as the door swung open, revealing a trio of guests all positioned around the front of the desk. Because he recognized them, Matsuda knew right away that the identities of these three people were not what their visitor IDs reflected.

Two of the people - a man and a woman, both with light-colored hair - were standing on either side of the third, who was seated facing away from Matsuda and Aizawa as they both stood, dumbfounded, in the doorway. He was seated in such a way that while one leg was tucked up against his chest, the other was dangling over the edge of the chair, reaching the floor in a lazy, childish manner. But that was not what identified this person to Matsuda - it the man's shock of messy, stark white hair and the way he was casually twirling it that did.

When neither Matsuda nor Aizawa made either a sound or a move, without turning around, the man slowly raised an arm, reached back behind him, opened his palm, and said with a calm, low, smooth voice, "I'll be having my phone back, please."


	3. Chapter 3

**Just to clarify - this chapter and probably the next one are kind of circling back through the week leading up to the end of the last chapter, only it's from Near's POV. Hope that is not confusing to anyone, but if it is, feel to free to ask me any questions! :)**

* * *

As the World's Greatest Detective, Near – otherwise known as L to the rest of the world – was nothing short of an expert at keeping himself, his team, and his whereabouts secured, almost to the point where some might have considered him a ghost had they not dealt with him directly – as directly as they could through a computer screen and a synthesized voice, anyway. In order to keep the aforementioned items secured, every program and device that Near and his team had ever used was registered into a logging system that reported in real time directly onto Near's laptop. Any camera that was tripped, any line that was used, any internet searches done on his name and whereabouts, any activity at all was logged down to the millisecond. It would therefore go without saying that nothing got by without grabbing either Near's attention or the attention of one of his team members.

On November 24, 2026, a set of commands scrolled by on the data logger on Near's personal laptop that most definitely grabbed his attention.

Now, Near considered himself to be highly skilled in controlling and concealing his emotions, even from himself at times. He had an unparalleled ability to compartmentalize different emotions, thoughts, feelings, and memories in such a way that his outward appearance belied no clues as to what was really going on inside his head. Many had tried to guess, and just as many had failed. He had been called emotionless, robotic, sociopathic, psychopathic, and otherwise mentally handicapped on many occasions as a result, and maybe on some level, those who had said these things about him were right. On what level, Near had never cared to find out, and that alone was probably enough reason to believe they were right.

In his youth, he had been berated and bullied by one particular boy (who had suffered from a massive inferiority complex) in an array of manners, and none of it had earned so much as a batted eye from him. This had, of course, only increased the amount of bullying he had received from the older boy, and that too had gone unacknowledged in every instance. He had been both threatened at gunpoint and witnessed a man being pumped full of bullets right before his eyes, and on both occasions he had remained calm and in control of himself. He had even come into contact with a notebook that could kill people, witnessed firsthand the undeniable ability of such a notebook, and had met the chaotic death god who had brought it to the human world all for his own amusement, thus eliminating all doubt from his mind that there was no actual "God", and still he had complete reign over all his faculties.

And yet, for all of that, Near found himself unwittingly reacting to the words that had just scrolled by on his data logger.

"This particular string of murders is nothing more than-..."

 _873314800055516 activated_

 _Data logger online_

 _Tracing..._

 _Unauthorized component detected_

 _Initiating security protocols..._

 _Security protocols initiated_

 _Standby..._

Near paused in his explanation as these commands scrolled by on his laptop screen, catching them from the corner of his eye. His eyebrows shifted upward slightly in surprise. 873314800055516? That was-...

"Near?"

"-..They're nothing more than more of these copycat murders," he continued as if nothing had happened, shaking off his momentary stupor, though the implications of what he had just seen definitely got his pulse going, "Hardly worth our time."

"How can you be sure of that?" his female agent, Halle Lidner, questioned. Near could feel her gaze upon him, knowing that she and the others had picked up on his slight hesitation. He inwardly cursed himself for his obvious slip. It was extremely unlike him, to say the least, but he had been taken by such surprise at seeing that particular device register on his data logger that there was nothing he could have done to prevent it. Aside from that, he truthfully could not be sure of much of anything anymore. Like hell he was going to let his team know that, though they could be annoyingly observant of his thoughts and actions at times.

"Because people are boring and unoriginal," he replied, going back to what he was doing with his Tarot cards. At 32 years old, he really needed to get a new hobby, but he had already cycled through all his other hobbies, landing him back on this one. He hoped that his boredom at the way things were going would not be so apparent to his team, but then people had become _so_ boring, he was finding it difficult to hide it anymore. He really was not the least bit interested in this case, and it didn't help that part of his mind stayed on what he had seen on his laptop, going over what it could mean. He wanted to dismiss them immediately, but he decided it would be best to wait until after this discussion with his team to look into it further.

"That's not a deduction - that's your opinion," she pointed out.

"It's my deduction and my opinion," he countered.

"How so?"

"Yes, Near," one of his other agents, Anthony Rester, chimed in, "Please explain your comment to the rest of us."

Near held back a sigh and said, "Surely you are aware that ever since C-Kira's disappearance, a large number of copycat murders has cropped up all over the world. People seem to be choosing a particular type of criminal or lowlife, one that has had an effect on their personal life, and eliminating only those types."

"That's true, but these victims all died of heart attacks," said Lidner, and Near knew right away what she was implying.

"That's not surprising at all," Near stated plainly. "All of the victims were drug addicts - cocaine addicts, to be specific. The risk of a heart attack is statistically higher among these users. And more importantly, it seems unlikely for someone to know the names and faces of all the cocaine addicts living in the state of Vermont."

"Unless they are a recovered addict who knows the community well," said Stephen Gevanni, who was standing more off to the side, leaning back against one of the monitoring stations. While the man had taken over Roger Ruvie's role as Watari, he was still included in all of their cases and discussions - none of them would have had it any other way.

"Recovered addicts don't go back and cleanse their own former communities like that. If anything, they go into hiding, especially if they were a part of a gang. No one would put their own life at risk like that - primarily not someone who was once part of a gang."

"They would if it was in the name of Kira," said Lidner.

Near focused with added vigor on the tower he was building with his cards, aggravated by the mention of that name – not that he did not hear it on a regular basis, just the simple fact that he was sick of hearing it. Nearly fourteen years after his death and Kira was still there, eluding capture by being woven into the very fabrics of the world's societies. In essence, he was fighting Kira without _actually_ fighting Kira. None of these copycats could even begin to measure up to the puzzle that had been Light Yagami. Those cases were boring, an insulting waste of his intellect, and right now, he really wanted the three of them to leave so that he could look into 873314800055516, something that would be the opposite of boring to him right now.

"I'm sure the local police have already thought of that," said Near, keeping his voice calm and even despite his irritation. "And whether or not it is being done in the name of Kira is irrelevant."

"I don't know, Near," Rester interjected, "You said yourself that there have been these kinds of reports all over the world - as we have all known for a while now. People are no longer relying on Kira to come back and take care of criminals - they are taking things into their own hands."

"I have realized this."

"They have to be linked, somehow."

"They don't have to be anything. They could be Kira-inspired murders - they could not be. There could be a notebook involved - most likely not - or there could not be. Either way, we will never know until a set pattern emerges. For now, the only pattern is that there is not one, save for people feeling inspired enough by Kira to take the law into their own hands, and most of them are eventually apprehended by the local police anyway - so, again, this one is hardly worth our time," he said with an air of finality.

He rather hoped his team would drop it at that point and leave, but nothing of the sort took place. They each remained for some time afterwards, arguing that they should take the case, until Near conceded and agreed that he would look into it only if the body count reached the same minimum of ten that his predecessor preferred. Until then, his team was to use their own time to keep an eye on it.

It was late in the evening by the time he convinced his team to leave him and retire for the night. The moment they did, he stopped what he was doing with the Tarot cards and went back to his laptop, opening the full data log and narrowing down the search criteria to just the device in question. He was truthfully not sure what to expect – except that he felt a strange kind of excitement in his gut that he had not felt in over a decade – but what the search results yielded was more puzzling than exciting, and not in a good way.

He went back over the data he had seen earlier. With the exception of the activity from today, November 24, 2026, 873314800055516 had last been in use on February 2, 2016. After that, the log showed that the battery had lost all power, taking with it all ability to track the device as a result. The length of time that the device had gone unused was not exactly concerning to him – he was well aware that he had not received any communications from it in the last decade, although after deciding to leave it on _just in case,_ he had admittedly forgotten about it for the most part. What was concerning, however, was the fact that the data logger was registering an unauthorized component.

For some reason, he truly wanted to believe that this was because the owner of the device had decided to reach out to him, and in order to do so, had needed to install a new battery, seeing as the old one was completely dead. Unfortunately, in doing so, one of the device's many security protocols had been activated, thus locking out any would-be user by presenting that person with a number of time-consuming barriers that, in fact, led nowhere. In the meantime, this allowed his own data logger to gather intelligence on who was using it and why.

Near felt his heart skip a beat at the very thought that it could be _her_. Could she really be trying to reach out to him, after all this time? He could not remember the last time he had actually thought of her, but now that she was there in his thoughts, she blocked out everything else, including all the cases he and his team were working on. If she really was trying to reach out to him, all he had to do was locate his corresponding phone and call her – that would temporarily disable all the security protocols and allow her to answer. But what would he say to her? More importantly – what would she say to him?

It seemed he did not have to fret over that, at any rate, because the rest of the log revealed another story altogether. After the unauthorized component had been installed, the phone powered on, and the security protocols engaged, the phone had covertly snapped a picture of its surroundings at the time and sent it straight to Near's personal laptop. Near opened the image to reveal the skewed visage of an unknown person – a man, dressed in a stereotypical laboratory worker's getup, with fluorescent ceiling lights glaring behind him. His initial scrutiny of the photo told Near most of what he needed to know – the phone was located in an office building of some sort and was being handled by someone who, presumably, worked in a laboratory setting. His mind instantly jumped to forensics.

This all left him feeling quite uneasy. Who exactly had _her_ phone and _why_ did they have it? He read further down the log, revealing more photos of the same surroundings, which had been taken at fifteen minute intervals, and GPS coordinates, placing the phone at-.. the headquarters of the Japanese NPA?

Reading down a little further, he saw that since the phone had been activated, it had not once moved from those coordinates. So, in the last six hours, the phone had not moved from what he now understood to be one of the tech labs at the Japanese NPA headquarters. Even more concerning was that this had all taken place later in the day and now into the late evening hours – meaning that this could not be dismissed as her merely visiting someone at the station and having repairs made on the phone or anything like that.

Deciding to do some further research into the situation, Near moved to look into the Japanese NPA database and see what the reason was for their possession of the phone he had given to _her_. He did not know what exactly he was expecting to find through this search, although experience and a hollowed feeling in his gut told him it was not good, but his shock at finding the results was all the same.

She was dead. Raped. Murdered. A presently unidentified assailant had abducted her as she was taking out the rubbish late on the evening of September 26, 2026. She had been missing for at least twelve hours when the police were told of a Jane Doe matching her description at an area hospital. That Jane Doe had turned out to be _her_ , Sayu Yagami. A young woman had discovered Sayu behind a dumpster belonging to the apartment complex at which the young woman resided. She, Sayu, had had a hole in the back of her head where she had been shot by an unregistered 9mm pistol after being brutally beaten and raped. She had then been dumped, used and thrown out and left for dead like a piece of trash.

But she had been a fighter – just as Near remembered her. She had miraculously survived for several hours, unconscious and bleeding on the pavement, before she had been discovered by the young woman and an ambulance called. But that was where any semblance of a miracle ended. She later died in the hospital from horrific wounds she would have never had a chance of recovering from.

This could not be right. This could not be about _her_. The words he was reading on his laptop screen surely were not in reference to Sayu. Not _Sayu_... Not the woman who had been his first friend, who he had opened himself up to, who he had shared himself with, who he had once held in his arms, made love to... who had once held his heart... still held his heart.

The shock was so great, all he could do was stare at the screen. His mind became a blinding whirlwind of thoughts, memories, and emotions. Should one of his team members have walked in right then, he was sure he would not have been able to react even then. Everything wound inside of him and blended together until all that was left was a resounding feeling of numbness. It was this numbness alone that allowed him to continue reading further.

In all honesty, he saw very little point in reading her case any further. He had seen everything he had needed to see – her case was currently considered a random, opportunistic crime, it had grown cold due to a lack of leads, and it seemed unlikely at that point that any other leads would surface. At a preliminary glance, Near was unfortunately inclined to agree – crimes like this took place all the time, and regardless of whether or not the criminal was clever, sometimes not enough evidence was left behind for the authorities to bring in a suspect, let alone make a conviction. The simple fact that the victim was someone you knew.. someone you cared about.. did not mean non-existent evidence would magically appear, not even to the World's Greatest Detective. Near had seen it happen all too often for him to harbor any delusions about this case, shocking as it was.

Despite all that, he did feel urged to read on, and after a moment he experienced yet another shock when he discovered that she had left behind two children, a pair of twins aged 10. The report further stated that they had no surviving family and were therefore being housed at a nearby orphanage. Something about that instantly sent Near into action before he even had a moment to wonder why. Before he knew what he was doing, he was pulling up the children's family registry and was again finding himself staring at his laptop in shock.

Twin children.

A girl and a boy.

Yagami, Chihiro and Soichiro.

Born September 6, 2016.

Father, Unknown.


	4. Chapter 4

**Hello there! I am so glad everyone is liking it so far. I have to apologize for any hearts I may have broken by killing off Sayu, but I'm afraid I had that planned from the very beginning. I hope you can forgive me as I have lots of plans for the rest of the series. :)**

 **Also, I find Near both easy and difficult to write, depending on what is going on. It's easy to write cold, calculating Near, but trying to think of how to write shocked, grieving Near is something else. I hope I have done him justice!**

 **One last thing before we move on - pretty much any background OC's name or names of made-up institutions I got by using random name generators. :P**

 **That is all. Thank you for reading so far. I hope you like it!**

* * *

"What do you mean we're going to Japan?" Lidner stammered after she and her teammates had been stunned into silence by their boss' proclamation.

"It's exactly as it sounds," replied Near as he continued boxing up all his Tarot cards. "Our flight leaves at 6:00 PM, so I would suggest you start getting everything together now."

"But we're in the middle of a case. Several cases, in fact."

"I am aware. We can continue our work on them remotely, as we are perfectly capable of doing."

"Right-…" Lidner acknowledged, at which point she must have realized that she was the only one standing around doing nothing, because she suddenly moved to help relieve a struggling Gevanni of some of his massive load of Near's toys, "It's just that, we haven't been to Japan-…"

"…-In ten years, yes. I am also aware of this."

The woman pressed her lips together and shot him a look. "I was going to say since your break-up with the Yagami girl, but I suppose that's the same thing."

Near knew she was waiting for some kind of response from him – be it a glare or a demand to change the subject or something – but what she got instead was cold silence. It was perhaps that cold silence that gave him away in the end, because she then said, "Wait, _is_ this about her?"

Near silently cursed her for being so keen on reading him. While she still did not truly know what he was thinking most of the time, she was certainly better at it than most people, including his other two agents who had worked with him for just as long. Near chalked it up to the fact that she was a woman who had forgone her childbearing years in the pursuit of her career and therefore probably saw him as the closest thing she would ever get to having a child of her own. Had Near not been himself, he might have found the sentiment endearing – but seeing as he was himself, he found her to be more overbearing in this regard than anything else. She was an excellent agent and bodyguard – which, aside from trust and familiarity, was why he continued to keep her around – but her maternal attention towards him at times was something he could definitely do without. He was 32 years old and she still treated him like a child, he thought as he gathered up more of his scattered Tarot cards, marbles, and action figures.

Not wanting to talk about Sayu right now – or ever, really – Near glossed right over her observations and said, "I have been asked by Roger to seek out potential Wammy's candidates."

Rester and Gevanni both looked at him in surprise, along with Lidner, who had been looking at him in surprise the whole time.

Simultaneous responses erupted from the three of them:

"What?"

"Are you serious?"

"In the middle of a case – cases?"

"Yes, in the middle of our cases," Near said, "As you said, we have not been to Japan in ten years - Roger seems to feel that potential candidates could have surfaced in that time."

"But why does he need _you_ to do that?" The question, again, came from Lidner.

"Because I am a former student and he believes it would be to my own benefit to look into it. Not only that, but Roger is not in the greatest of health these days, as you are aware. Travel would be too difficult for him."

"Near…" said Rester in a cautious tone as he began packing up Near's laptops, "..Is there something we need to know?" Near thought there was something else the commander was getting at but was reluctant to say, so he decided to forgo an answer until the man elaborated further. Sure enough, a few seconds later: "…About you?"

Near was so anxious to get everything packed and rolling along that he almost missed what the older man was getting at. Of course – he and the others were probably worried that this spontaneous trip to a country they had been avoiding for the last decade to seek out Wammy's candidates meant that there was something wrong with Near. That line of thinking would have led them to believe that none of the current students at Wammy's qualified as his successor and that he therefore needed to go find an adequate replacement as soon as possible, preferably one he had chosen himself. The fact that they had all picked up on his abnormal behavior the day before would have then cemented the idea in their minds.

Once he realized this, he answered, "No. I am in excellent health. Thank you for your concern." He paused for less than a second and then said, "Now that that is settled - do any of you have a problem with going to Japan?"

More simultaneous responses from his team:

"Not at all."

"Of course not."

"..I just thought _you_ might have a problem with it."

"I don't," he said as calmly as he could in response to Lidner's concern, though in reality, he felt a myriad of uncomfortable emotions he couldn't even begin to name roiling in his gut. "I am merely doing this as a favor to someone who has done a great deal of service to me in the past."

While his team did appear doubtful of his explanation, they at least ceased with the questions for the time being and went to work packing up their most important stuff. When the time came for them to board their private jet, it was done mostly in silence. Near could sense that his team still had their doubts about the reasoning behind this trip, but apparently they knew better than to ask further questions at that point, something for which he was immensely grateful. With everything going on inside his head at that time, he was glad to not have to devise ways of dodging their questions and waylaying their concern.

During the flight, Near spent a great deal of time on his laptop, keeping an eye on the phone's activity while it was in the Japanese police's possession (it seemed they had broken through the first lockout screen - Near had to give them credit for that - and had moved onto the next, but this did not worry Near in the least, who knew it would likely take them years to get through the password lockout, if at all), researching everything he could about Sayu's case, and looking into everything he needed to know about dual citizenship and proving paternity in Japan. It was a lot to take in all at once, but focusing on all the details and figuring out how they fit into the bigger picture was what he was good at. With all this information, he was able to begin forming a game plan for once they arrived at their destination.

In the meantime, he passed off all offers of anything to eat with the exception of his favorite chamomile tea. He had hoped it would help settle his stomach, but it instead had the opposite effect. The tea churned uncomfortably in his stomach, badly enough that he ended up needing to excuse himself. Once he got to the compact bathroom, he bent over the toilet with the expectation that his body would thereafter begin purging what was in his stomach. When that did not happen, he closed his eyes and forced himself to take slow, measured breaths. In and out. In and out.

God, he hated feeling this way. He knew that, logically, nobody liked to feel sick, but he felt it was especially so for him because not only did it make his team worry about him, it made him feel too.. human. Not that Near thought he was anything other than human, despite being told the opposite throughout his life, it was just so-.. inconvenient – _this_ being the prime example. Even more inconvenient was the fact that he had just told his team only hours before that he was in excellent health, and now here he was, feeling like the room was swimming around him in a way that had nothing to do with normal plane turbulence. It left him feeling vulnerable, and being the World's Greatest Detective did not leave much room for vulnerabilities.

Then again, if he couldn't afford any vulnerabilities, then what exactly was he going to Japan for...?

Thankfully, after a few minutes of riding it out, the worst of the feeling dissipated, thus allowing him to stand upright again. He approached the small sink and pondered his own reflection. Everything seemed to be in order, and seeing as his skin was normally quite pale anyway, he doubted his team would notice that anything was amiss.

Upon exiting the bathroom, he went to pick up his laptop, reclaim his seat, and resume his research, and had to force himself to execute all of these actions seamlessly after noticing that his laptop had been moved a little less than an inch from where he had left it. It was entirely possible that the movements from the plane had caused it, however – while in the bathroom - he had not felt any turbulence major enough to cause such a drastic change in the laptop's position.

Really, he was rather disappointed in his team. They should have at least known to put it back in its exact spot or to otherwise expect that he would notice. Then again, maybe they wanted him to notice - maybe they wanted him to know that they had tried to look into what he was doing on his laptop. Either way, he had locked the laptop before rushing off to the restroom, however sudden it had been, so there was no way they could know anything. He was aware that the simple act of locking his laptop had probably aroused suspicion among his team, but at least this way he was able to avoid them finding out their real reasons for going to Japan until much later.

Still, he almost narrowed his eyes at the revelation that one of his team members had used his laptop in his absence, but he stopped himself because he knew they were all watching him. The fact that at least one of them did not believe the explanation he had given to them and had therefore tried to snoop around on his laptop to find answers, made him want to lock himself in the bathroom with his laptop until the end of the flight. He decided it would be wiser to continue on as though nothing had happened, though. He did also find his team's lack of questions and concern over his sudden and lengthy trip to the bathroom a bit disconcerting, but, again, there was nothing to be done about it. Besides, maybe they would refrain from bringing it up until after he did what he needed to do.

When he later explained to his team what needed to be done, there was some surprise that went around, but they listened for the most part. Near figured this was because they were all more curious about his intentions at this point than anything else. That was fine with him, so long as this all panned out as smoothly as he was hoping it would.

Rester and Lidner were instructed to hold down the fort at where they were set up at a hotel, while Gevanni was to accompany Near to Skyreach Home the following morning. During the flight, Near had contacted the orphanage under Gevanni's name with his request and corresponded with the director. His request had been met with some initial confusion and reluctance, but after offering to donate a large sum of money to the orphanage for their troubles, the director had agreed to meet with him at 10:30AM on Friday, November 27, 2026.

When Near and Gevanni arrived at Skyreach Home at the agreed upon time, they were escorted by a shy but helpful young woman to the director's office. She knocked on the partially opened door and said, "Director Kobe? Mr. Gevanni and Mr. Adams are here to see you for your 10:30."

The man invited the two former SPK members in with a wave of his hand, smiled, and said, "Could I get the two of you anything? Water? Coffee?"

"No, thank you, Director," answered Gevanni with one of his more winning smiles.

Near shook his head in response, offering a small, polite smile, and took his seat across the desk from Kobe, feeling uncomfortable not only for having to sit normally, but also from having to wear contacts, a wig, and a professional suit, complete with a tie and shiny new shoes. All of this was in an effort to conceal his identity for the time being. There was no point in revealing who he really was during this preliminary examination, so he had sent his team away to purchase for him whatever effects they deemed acceptable. It seemed to be a simple enough solution, but actually putting the damned things on and walking around in them was another story altogether. He did recognize the importance of blending in for the purpose of their visit, it was just that the contacts were uncomfortable, the wig was itchy, the suit was tight in certain areas, and he did not appreciate the stiffness of the new shoes on his feet.

Well, he couldn't focus too much on that right now. While he tried his best not to fidget with the suit or his hair (which was another challenge altogether), he sat back and listened as Gevanni slipped flawlessly into his role as Roger's proxy.

"Thank you for having us on such short notice," said Gevanni, "Our benefactor - Mr. Adams - and I thank you deeply."

"It's not any problem at all," said the director with another casual wave of his hand. "I can't tell you how much we appreciate your generosity. We are always in need of donations – anything at all to help the children. Though I must say, I have never had a request as.. unique as yours."

"We get that a lot," Gevanni grinned, "We do represent the only orphanage of its kind, after all."

"A home for gifted children, huh?" said the director. "I can't really say that we have any gifted children here at Skyreach, or any that might qualify for your program. We have all their school aptitude tests that I can show to you if you like, if that would make your visit easier."

"I don't think that will be necessary," Gevanni interjected, but in a kind tone, "We will have our own tests to administer should we come across any likely candidates."

"I see," said the director as he raised an eyebrow and appeared cautious, "And just how will you know if there are any gifted children here if you don't administer any tests first?"

"Well, that's why I asked to come here in person and also where our benefactor, Mr. Adams, comes in," Gevanni answered as he turned slightly in Near's direction. Near shifted in discomfort, also not used to wearing such things as belts, but respectfully inclined his head nonetheless. "He has a talented eye for picking out candidates before we even administer tests. He simply observes a child's behavior and is able to make his assertions based on that."

Kobe, still with an eyebrow raised, glanced at Near as though he did not believe Gevanni's explanation. "Are you sure that is an accurate way of assessing a child?"

Gevanni gave the other man a pleasant smile, "Let's just say that he is never wrong about a person."

"Hm," Kobe grunted, still not appearing convinced - but then there was that large check hanging in the balance. Near could all but see the director's thoughts reflected in his eyes – not to mention how Near knew that the man had lost his wife and child in a car accident fifteen years ago and had thereafter taken over the role as director of Skyreach Home to fill in that hole in his life, and because of this, Near knew he would do anything to provide for the orphans under his care. Kobe then said, "Very well. The children will be having their morning play time in the rec room at this time. I can have Ms. Yuki show you the way - I have some other business to attend to for the time being, I'm afraid. I hope you don't think me rude."

"Not at all, sir," said Gevanni amicably. He and Near exchanged a look, and right on cue, Gevanni said, "Will I be able to leave the check with Ms. Yuki or should I leave it with you after we are finished?"

"You may leave it with Ms. Yuki," the director answered, bowing to his two guests, who bowed back. "Thank you again for your donation, and I hope you find what you are looking for."

Moments later, Near and Gevanni were being led away by Ms. Yuki, who definitely appeared to be interested in the older, dark-haired man because she kept blushing and looking away. Gevanni knew to take advantage of this right away, because he humored the young woman by asking her things about herself and complimenting her for her choice in career. This would allow Near the space he needed to perform his task.

As they approached the recreational room, Near could hear various small voices and laughter, alerting him to the presence of many children. Something inside of him shifted in discomfort at the sound, for it brought back memories of his time at Wammy's. He could almost imagine for a moment that he was back there again and that his belligerent counterpart was still alive, ready to call him a rude name or push him around at a moment's notice. How strange it was that the current situation seemed to be reflecting his own childhood.

Near truthfully did not know what to expect once he was able to view the orphaned children. One thing he knew to expect for certain was that he would find two children who were Sayu's. Although he did not know what they looked like, he had no doubt in his mind that he would recognize them right away - everything about Sayu was so far etched into his visual memory, there was no way he would miss her physical features in her children.

That, however, was the only thing of which he was certain. His mind was otherwise full of doubt, which was something that was as hard for him to admit to himself as it was frightening. On one hand, he knew that his subconscious desire to doubt that the children were his was practically absurd - the children had been born approximately 39 weeks after the last time he had been with Sayu and there was no father listed on their family registry. The logical part of his brain knew first and foremost that there were hardly such things as coincidences in life, and if there were to be any coincidences, ones as easily explained as this simply did not exist.

But on the other hand, some inexplicable part of him was still wanting to doubt that the children were actually his. This doubt was being spun from a few external factors - either he had somehow impregnated Sayu despite her being on birth control; she had lied about being on said birth control; or she had slept with another man around that time and she had become pregnant with that man's children instead. He doubted that he could have gotten her pregnant while she was on birth control, but he especially doubted that she would have lied to him about her birth control and/or that she would have ever cheated on him. Each eventuality seemed as unlikely as the next, but the most logical answer was that her birth control had simply failed. Or maybe she had simply forgotten to take it on time. He realized that these particular doubts were being spun internally from his own biased memory of Sayu, and not necessarily based on facts, but the doubts were there just the same.

Whatever the case, the voice of doubt in the back of his mind _was_ there, and it sounded almost desperate. The fact that he had lived the last ten years of his life unaware of the children's existence weighed on him in a way he could not quite explain. He felt burned and frozen by it at the same time. Somewhere within the next room were two children whom he had never met, never known about, and there was an overwhelming likelihood that they were _his_. And if they were his, he would then have to face to reality that Sayu had actively chosen not to tell him about them. Were it not for her sudden, horrific death and the Japanese police's efforts of breaking into her phone to contact him for help on the case, Near knew he would still be none-the-wiser. He felt a pinprick of _something_ deep down in his chest, but he forced the feeling aside, not wanting to think about what had happened to her or the fact that, no matter which way he sliced it, she had lied to him.

Truthfully, it was largely for those reasons that part of him had wanted to believe that they were not his. He could not even begin to fathom why she would have decided to keep his children a secret from him, especially since she had retained possession of the phone he had given to her. It was true that not even Near knew how he would have reacted to such news, especially after their break-up, but the fact was that _she could have called him at any time_.. and she had chosen not to. Even worse was that he would never be able to confront her about it.

Regardless of his reasons for wanting to doubt his paternity to the two children, as he beheld them in person, all doubt was removed.

While many of the other children were resigned to their placement at the orphanage, Near immediately picked up on the pair that was not. A girl and a boy were sitting together, alone, in an otherwise unoccupied part of the room, as far away from the other children as they could get. The other kids seemed to be giving them a wide berth as well, something Near found curious. They seemed to be disinterested in even interacting with the others and appeared to be barely keeping themselves together, but that was not altogether surprising, considering the circumstances that had landed them there.

Near felt something odd rise up inside of him at the sight of the boy, for he was all but the spitting image of his deceased uncle, the very man Near himself had defeated nearly fourteen years ago. He had the same brunet hair and the same copper-colored eyes. There was such a striking resemblance between the boy and Yagami that Near barely saw himself in the boy at first. Upon further examination, though, he noted that the boy's hair was not as straight and neat as Yagami's had been, but rather naturally messy and unkempt like his own, and his face was definitely influenced by a Caucasian lineage and lacked the sharp, hard edges that ran on his Japanese side. The thoughts that Yagami would have been absolutely disgusted by the appearance of this young hybrid of the two of them and that Mello would be laughing his ass off right about now flitted across his mind before he then focused more on the girl.

The appearance of the girl made him feel almost more uncomfortable than that of the boy. It wasn't just the fact that she was making it so painfully apparent that she did not want to be there that her face seemed to be set in a permanent scowl; or the fact that she was clutching a violin case to her chest as though it alone could protect her from the demons that had stolen her mother; or even the fact that she shared the same long, thick, chocolate brown hair as Sayu - it was the fact that when her eyes raised to see who had just entered the room and met his, he saw that they were a copy and paste set of his own. The same tired, gray eyes he had been born with had been passed on to this girl - his daughter. The look in those eyes was deeply haunted, afflicted with all the cruelty and unfairness of the world that Near was all too familiar with himself. Those eyes bore into him, reaching something deep inside of him and twisting it hard until he felt for sure he would not have been able to form words were it not for the fact that Gevanni was now nudging him to get his attention.

"What do you see, Adams?" said Gevanni.

Without so much as glancing at him, Near said, "Mr. Gevanni, please produce the check to Ms. Yuki and we will be on our way."

"Really?" Gevanni said, sounding surprised. "Did you see any candidates?"

"I have seen all that I needed to see."


	5. Chapter 5

**Hello! A couple things before I proceed, if I may. I wanted to make you all aware that I did make a couple tiny changes to Chapter 2 - I amended the date that Matsuda got the call about his adoption application being suspended, and I changed that part so that instead of his application being suspended pending an investigation, the agency just tells him it's been suspended and that's all. I realized after the fact that it makes more sense for them to be as scant on details as possible. Sorry about that.**

 **Also, small piece of trivia since someone brought it up - I originally had it that Near's daughter did inherit his white hair, but I decided against it because I felt that the white hair is such a distinctive Near trait, I didn't think it should be shared with any other character. I decided, instead, that it would be okay for her to have his eyes. I felt it would have the most impact for his daughter to inherit those big, gray eyes of his, although I don't think she has that sleepless, creepy look down quite yet. :P**

 **One last thing - this chapter does shift POVs in the middle, as you will see when you get to the line break. Please let me know if you have any questions.**

 **Anyway, sorry to take up your time when I know you want to just read the next chapter, so here you go! :)**

* * *

"I think there is something going on with Near."

Rester grunted from over by the desk where he was going over their security systems to make sure they were all up and running, "You think?"

"Sarcasm, Commander," Lidner remarked, her expression grim. "I'm being serious."

"So am I," said the man, whose blond hair was becoming flecked with more and more gray as the days went by. "The odd behavior, suddenly packing up in the middle of our cases and going to Japan, and it's all because Roger wants Near to find more Wammy's candidates? Something doesn't seem right about that."

"Agreed," said Lidner with a nod, "I think it's also worth noting that he wanted Gevanni to accompany him to the orphanage instead of one of us. Sounds like he's trying to sneak in there for some reason, if you ask me."

"Well, Gevanni has better social skills than either of us, to be honest," Rester suggested.

"That's exactly my point. If his reasons for going there are valid, then why the need to have Gevanni cover for him?"

The commander shrugged his massive shoulders. "Can't say. Maybe he felt that one of us might frighten the children and that Gevanni appears the least imposing."

"That's another point of mine – why did he need to go there in person? Do you think Roger actually goes and visits all these orphanages in person to acquire new students?"

Another shrug from the commander as he said, "I can't honestly say I have thought much about it. Maybe the orphanages are reluctant to give up guardianship of a child unless they meet him in person. That would make sense to me, anyway."

"We should call Roger."

"What? Why?"

"He'll be able to confirm for us if he really did send Near on this mission in his stead – or, at the very least, tell us if Near is sick or if something else is going on that he is not telling us."

"But why would he tell Roger if he was sick and not us? And for that matter, why would he lie to us at all?"

"We _are_ talking about Near, Commander."

"All right," said Rester with a sigh, not liking where this was going either way. "So call Roger, then. It should be a while before Near and Gevanni get back, so there should be plenty of time."

Lidner already had her phone out and was dialing up Roger's number before Rester had even finished speaking. The line rang several times and she was about to hang up when a very cranky voice answered, "..Do you have any idea what time it is here? I'm an old man – I need my sleep."

"Roger, sorry to call you in the middle of the night like this," she said, although she felt only slightly apologetic for waking up the cantankerous old man.

"Oh, it's you," he groused. "What has he done this time?"

Under normal circumstances, Lidner might have found his response amusing, but seeing as this was a more serious matter at the moment, she cut right to the chase, "Can I ask why you decided to have Near visit orphanages in Japan for future Wammy's students while we are in the middle of several cases?"

There was a brief moment of silence on the other end of the phone that was followed by an exasperated sigh, "I'm sure he explained as much to you, did he not?"

Lidner noted the elderly man's deflection and said, "He did, but it just seemed-.. out of the blue, that's all."

"It may seem out of the blue, yes, but I am the one running the program here and none of the students we currently have would be able to replace Near should something happen to him."

"You make it sound like something _is_ going to happen to him," said Lidner, feeling more concerned than ever.

"Well, at some point, I'm sure something will," Roger said with another sigh, as if the idea of losing of one of his most successful students meant nothing to him compared to losing sleep, "Being the World's Greatest Detective isn't exactly the safest job, as I am sure you are aware."

"Right, that's why he has us," she rebutted.

"Then what are you getting at, Agent Lidner?"

"Look, can you just tell us if he is ill or if something else is going? I can understand why he might want to keep it a secret and why you might want to cover for him, but we have a right to know, especially after everything we have been through as a team."

"I'm afraid I am in the same boat as you – to my knowledge, he is not ill nor is there anything else going on," he replied. "Have you tried asking him about this yourself?"

"I have, actually – his answer was that you were sending him off to Japan to find more Wammy's students, which is why I am calling you."

"Then there's your answer. I don't see what the big mystery is. You should trust what he has told you. You know he would never do anything that would jeopardize any of you or himself – or the secrecy of your operation, for that matter - without telling you first."

"He would if it was for Sayu."

"What do you mean? Who is that?"

"Sayu Yagami? Light's younger sister? She and Near were dating for some time about-… ten, eleven years ago, now."

"Oh, right, I remember," said the old man. "Huh. I never would have thought he'd have it in him before she came along."

Lidner felt that she could have elaborated to the moon and back about the truth of Roger's statement, but all she could think about was how attached Near had been to Sayu.

"But do you see my point now, Roger?"

"Not really."

"You think it's a coincidence that you send Near to Japan to scout for gifted orphans, and out of all the places he could have begun his search, he chose to start here – where Sayu lives?"

"You know what we say about coincidences in our line of work."

"So you _don't_ think it's a coincidence?"

"I don't think it's anything," he said brusquely. "Near is very much a man of the present - he always has been. He does not dwell on the past. And in any case, he _did_ go to Japan for the reason I asked."

The woman pursed her lips and fell silent for a moment, meeting eyes with her teammate from across the room and shaking her head at his questioning gaze. She still did not fully believe the explanations she was receiving, but seeing as she did not have much else to go on other than her gut instincts, she had no choice but to drop it. She let out a small breath of air and said, "I see. Well, thank you for your time, then."

"I would say 'any time', but please.. make sure it's an emergency next time."

"Right. Have a good rest of your night."

"Good bye."

Lidner hung up the phone and shoved it back into her pocket with a rough sigh. After being quiet for the most part, Rester said, "I take it he did actually send Near here to check for Wammy's candidates?"

"That's what he says."

"Well, as strange as the situation is, I have no real reason to doubt what Roger says."

"I guess not," Lidner said with reluctant resignation.

"I mean, think about what you're saying otherwise – you're saying that Roger told Near to come to Japan to find Wammy's candidates and that Near chose to visit Skyreach first... because of Sayu?"

"Yes… No… Maybe… I'm not sure, now."

"I think we're grasping at straws. I mean, I definitely think there is something more than either he or Roger is letting on, but maybe it's not what we think it is."

"Well, what the hell else could it possibly be?"

"He has known Roger a lot longer than the rest of us, so I bet it does have something to do with Wammy's. Maybe he did have a successor, but something happened and he needs to find a new one. Or it could be something personal and he doesn't want us to know. You know how he is. It doesn't have to mean anything serious is going on with him."

"Right," scoffed the woman. "I guess we'll just have to wait and see."

"Yeah. Speaking of which," said Rester, waving her over, "Get a load of this drunk guy in the lobby."

Deciding to humor him and without anything else to go on anyway, Lidner crossed the room and gazed at the monitor the commander had been watching. Sure enough, there was a man in the lobby who was stumbling around, clearly intoxicated, much to the chagrin of the nearby hotel staff. Smirking, she said, "11:00 AM and drunk like that already? Looks like someone has domestic issues going on."

"Looks like he can't find his room key," Rester observed, and for the moment both of them were entertained by watching as the man juggled around various objects produced from his pockets. "Bet you anything he's lost his mobile phone and we can tap into his room phone later and find out what kind of domestic issue."

"You go right ahead and do that, Commander. I'm sure Near will appreciate this fine use of our time and resources," she said.

"Probably about as much as he appreciates us not believing his reasoning for coming to Japan."

"Heh," she scoffed, reaching back into her pocket as her phone buzzed with an incoming text message. She pulled it out and flipped it open, her expression turned bemused. "Near and Gevanni are on their way back."

"Already? That was fast."

"Yeah. And for the record, Gevanni thinks something is up with Near, too."

* * *

As Near sat in the back of the limousine while Gevanni drove them back to their hotel, his mind felt both crowded and blank at the same time, which was certainly a bizarre feeling for him. His head had not felt this fuzzy since-.. well, since Sayu. The thought of her alone was enough to put his thoughts into a tailspin, but now-…

What the hell was he supposed to do _now_? What was he supposed to do with the knowledge that he had fathered two children that Sayu had never told him about? What was he supposed to do now, knowing what he did about the kinds of things that happened with orphans? What was he supposed to tell his team about the situation when they found out? Near knew it was only a matter of time before his team learned about Sayu and the children - he didn't keep them around for nothing, after all. In fact, after realizing that one of his team members had messed with his laptop while on the plane, he had no doubt that either Rester or Lidner was utilizing his time away to try to look into it further.

He did not want to think about any of that at the moment, though. He didn't want to think about any of this, but in a way, he had no choice. Mostly all he could think about was how Sayu had lied to him… She had lied to him, and now he had two children, one who painfully resembled her mother and the other who may as well have been a reincarnation of his megalomaniac uncle, and both of them were doomed to wasting away in a flawed system where orphans were easily forgotten, rarely cared about, and where they would forever struggle to survive. A lot of them even turned to a life of crime - emotionally damaged, filled with anger, and doing whatever it took to survive.

For some reason, Near did not want that to happen. Something about it did not sit well with him. He knew that, _technically_ , they were not his responsibility. The simple act of donating genetic material did not mean that a person should have responsibility over the resulting child, or children, and Near felt that that especially applied to him, being the World's Greatest Detective and all. Maybe he did not want anything bad to happen to the children, but that did not mean that he had any room in his life full of pre-existing responsibilities to care for them.

The fact was that Near was L, and L did not have room for children. Just because Sayu's birth control had failed and he was just now finding out about it a decade later, did not mean that he should have to surrender his livelihood to make up for it. Besides, it was not just his own livelihood that would be affected - it would affect the livelihoods of his team as well, and those of all the world's major police forces that relied on him for assistance. Not only that, but his very own successor that he had lined up in the event of his death or otherwise permanent disability was not yet ready to take on the role. At eleven years old, the child was much too young and immature, not to mention haughty as all hell. Near had no doubt that the child would be an adequate replacement one day, but he still had a lot to learn about what to expect when taking on the role of L. Landing it all in his lap now would only result in chaos for everyone involved.

Perhaps instead of taking them in himself, he could provide for them financially. He could always donate more money to Skyreach in the future and keep an eye on them to make sure that they were being well cared for. But what about after that? Could he periodically deposit money into their bank accounts once they got older? No, that wouldn't make much sense. Who's to say that they would actually use it, not knowing where it had come from?

Even though his initial reasoning for infiltrating Skyreach Home had been a ruse, he could always tell Director Kobe that he had discovered two candidates during his visit and request that they be transferred to Wammy's House in Winchester, England. Of course, he would have to contact Roger and have it arranged, but he did not foresee that being much of an issue. Even if the children did not qualify as "gifted" enough for Wammy's program (not that he had really been looking for such talent, given his shock at simply seeing them in the first place), Near could use his overwhelming clout to guarantee them a home at one of the safest places he could think of.

But was this what Sayu would have really wanted?

On one hand, Sayu was dead – what she would or would not have wanted no longer mattered in the grand scheme of things. He was pretty sure that she would not have wanted him to know about the children to begin with, so the fact that he was now left to wonder what her wishes would have been was a moot point.

On the other hand, was honoring Sayu's wishes and not becoming involved the right thing to do in this case? He did not think so. Maybe she had not wanted him to know about the children, but he knew for certain that she would not have wanted her children to be left behind at an orphanage and forgotten. Having them transferred to Wammy's would be totally different. They would be well cared for and would receive special attention, even if they did not necessarily fit in with Wammy's programs. If they had any special talents, they would be nourished and cultivated instead of being overlooked. It would be a whole lot better than letting them go through the rigmarole of a system that didn't care about them. Plus, he would be able to keep track of them without becoming directly involved in their lives and without them becoming involved in his. He would be abiding by her wishes both ways in this case.

Right. That sounded like the best course of action. He moved to dial up Roger on his phone to discuss it, and was surprised when it started going off in his hand. What a coincidence that Roger would be calling him right now when Near was just about to call him himself. Then again, was it _really_ a coincidence for Roger to be calling him when it was two in the morning in Winchester, while knowing that his team was worried about him?

With a vague idea of why his former Watari was calling him, Near answered, "What is it Roger?"

He heard a disgruntled breath of air from the man before he grumbled, "Next time you need me to lie for you, at least give me a head's up first, Nate."

Just as he suspected, his team had contacted Roger to verify their reasoning for going to Japan. Near did feel at least mildly irritated by this, but he was not altogether surprised either. Still, his silence prompted further scolding from the old man.

"You had better have a good reason for all of this."

Not in the mood to hear Roger's admonishment, Near decided to skip right to the heart of the matter, "I need to ask a favor of you, please."

But it seemed the old man would not be dissuaded from his annoyance that easily because a loud scoff came from the other end of the phone. "A little too late to ask for that after the fact, don't you think?"

"It's a different favor," he said, shifting in his seat and kicking the off the uncomfortable dress shoes. He had already removed his contacts and wig the moment he entered the limo. Hopefully, he would never have to wear those things again.

"Oh? I'm running a little short on those at 2:00 AM, even if it is for you."

"Please do this for me, Roger," he said softly.

Something about either what he said or the way he said it – or both – caused Roger to drop all his hostility. In a much kinder voice, he said, "..All right. What is it?"

"I need you to arrange the transfer of two children from Skyreach Home in Kanto, Japan to Wammy's House."

"..Are you going to tell me why?"

"I believe you already have an idea why, Roger."

There was a brief moment of silence before the older man said, "I see."

Near knew it would not have taken too much of a leap of logic for Roger to put the pieces together, seeing as he had an extra piece of the puzzle that his team did not have yet. Hearing Roger confirm verbally that he had made the connection created a fluttering sensation in the detective's chest. What an unsettling thought - there was now someone else who knew about his children.

His children…

Now _that_ caused a strange feeling to rise up inside of him. Perhaps it was mere kinship, but he felt there was something else to it. Whatever it was, he did not care to examine it any further at this point.

It was at this time that Near realized that Roger was allowing him a moment to process what had just been revealed. The aged man knew Near better than perhaps anyone else – even Lidner – and it was moments like these that made Near appreciate that. He especially appreciated Roger's willingness to help him without asking too many questions. It was a shame that he had had to force Roger to retire over concern for his health – although Near did still rely on him for plenty of things, case and point.

Finally, Roger broke the silence. He gently said, "Just tell me what you want done and I will get it done."

Near spent the next ten or so minutes briefing his former caretaker on how he wanted everything to be handled. When all was said and done, Roger had agreed to contact the director at Skyreach as soon as they hung up and take it all from there. He explained that the process would probably not be able to be officially started until Monday morning in Japan because he had a feeling that such agencies would not operate on the weekends. In addition to that, Roger explained that there would likely be a lengthy, bureaucratic process involved between the Japanese and British governments to get the children transferred. There would need to be paperwork filed to transfer guardianship, passports... a lot more paperwork than even Near had been aware of, apparently. It could take just a couple weeks, or the most likely scenario is that it would take at least a couple months, possibly more, as governments could be notoriously slow when processing these kinds of things.

Near understood all of this and agreed to stay in Japan for the duration of this process to see it through, so that he and Gevanni could continue to act as Roger's proxies as necessary. He was confident that he and his team could continue to work on their cases remotely, as long as he could arrange for a more secure, permanent base of operations in the interim. And as far as his team finding out what he was really up to... Well, he would just have to deal with that when the time came.

The whole discussion left behind an odd sense of finality that Near could not grasp until, at the end of their conversation, Roger said, "I may not know all the details involved in how this came about, but I just wanted you to know that I am sorry for the circumstances, Nate. Truly."

Near could not think of anything to say in response to that, so he thanked Roger for his help and hung up. What was left behind was an uncomfortable hollowed feeling that Near did not know what to do with. If he had to compare it to anything, he would have compared it to the feeling he had when Sayu had first ended things between them, a feeling which he was sure he had successfully removed from his memory until now. His chest stung and he felt a bit faint, almost as if he was going to be sick for real this time. It was not a good feeling, but he knew he could endure.

Again, he did not want to spend any time on dwelling on everything, so he went back to doing what he did best and began to plan his next move – recovering his phone from the Japanese police.

* * *

 **Sit tight - there are more curve balls coming, I promise. :)**

 **PS: I just wanted to give you guys a heads up... I just got some very bad news about a family member tonight. I may not be able to update as frequently in the foreseeable future, and if there are any errors, typos, or anything I overlook, then I sincerely apologize. I am not in a very good state of mind right now. I want you to understand, though, that this story is by no means abandoned. I very much plan to see this one to its end, I just don't know what to expect in the upcoming months with my family member. Thank you for your understanding.**


	6. Chapter 6

Infiltrating the Japanese NPA headquarters to retrieve his phone was, quite frankly, much easier than it should have been, in Near's opinion. It was also his opinion that this did not bode well for how the NPA handled their most private investigative affairs. But then again, Near had to admit that he did cheat his way into their building by way of the very phone he had come to retrieve.

In addition to the phone's covert ability to snap photos of its surroundings every fifteen minutes, it also contained a very well-hidden microphone that could allow Near to listen in on any conversations that just so happened to be taking place within the microphone's vicinity. In theory, he could have listened in on Sayu at any time, but he never saw the need to nor did he want to invade her privacy. Besides, the purpose of the microphone was not to spy on his girlfriend, but rather to spy on someone else should the phone ever fall into the wrong hands. Not that the phone was necessarily in the wrong hands, but it was not in either Sayu's or Near's hands and that was wrong enough.

Still, with as useful as this tool was, actually getting to listen to what was going on was another story.

"Near, what exactly are you doing?" questioned Lidner, approaching Near from behind where he was slouching in a chair, wearing a headset, and watching a set of commands on his laptop.

"I'm listening," he answered, his eyes glued to the commands as they scrolled by on his data logger, indicating that the phone was recording its surroundings.

"Listening to wh-…" Lidner's inquiry broke off as she peered over his shoulder. "Wait… 873314800055516… Isn't that the phone you gave to Sayu?"

"It is."

"Why are you-…?"

"I _am_ trying to listen, Lidner. Feel free to listen in as well, but please refrain from speaking in the meantime," he said as he reached out and pressed a button his laptop, turning up the volume. He saw little point in keeping the rest of his team in the dark about the phone now. They would soon know the truth of the situation anyway, and Near felt a lot more capable of handling their onslaught of questions after getting everything squared away with Roger.

Apparently Lidner did not need to be told twice that she could listen in, because she immediately grabbed a head set, plugged in, and fell silent. Soon, Rester joined the two of them, leaving Gevanni to keep an eye on the other monitoring and security systems as well as incoming case updates. Near was quite aware of the dark-haired man's curious glances in their direction, but he did not acknowledge them. At least his team was keeping quiet for now.

Every 30 seconds or so, he would hear a series of whirring and tapping noises followed by the data logger showing another failed password entry attempt. Near understood this as meaning that the cryptology department had hooked up the phone to some kind of primitive, automated password-guessing machine. Their failed attempts at breaking into the phone weren't at all from a lack of trying, that was for sure.

After several hours of listening intently to various conversations that came and went, Near finally caught a snippet of something useful.

At about 12:30 AM on November 28, 2026, the whirring and tapping noises became interspersed with voices and the following conversation took place:

"I'm impressed that this damn thing is still going. Hope it doesn't burn out its motor too soon."

"Well, it won't matter before too long anyway, because word from up top is they want us to stop wasting our time on it and focus on other tasks that need our attention."

"Really? After all that? So, what are they gonna do with it then?"

"Lock it up in evidence, I guess."

"Oh lord, don't let Touta know that."

"I don't plan on it. I think we should call in Brian Matthews. I already brought it up to the chief and he agreed to schedule him in here as soon as possible."

"You really think he might be able to get into it?"

"It's worth a shot, especially considering it's our last."

And that was all Near needed to hear. He immediately switched off the microphone, slipped off his headset, and went to work getting into the NPA's network again. This time, he was not after case information, but rather information stored on the police chief's personal computer.

"Near, when are you finally going to clue us in on what's going on?" demanded Lidner upon removing her headset and folding her arms. Through his peripheral vision, he could see his two male staff nodding in agreement.

Without looking up, the detective answered, "Currently, I am searching for the police chief's schedule so that we can use it to infiltrate the premises and recover the phone they currently have in their possession."

"But why do they have the phone you gave to Sayu?"

Seeing no reason to avoid the question, Near figured now was as good a time as any to rip off that particular bandage. "She's dead," he bluntly stated, as if talking about the weather. He could sense his team's surprise at hearing the news, but he paid little mind to it. "The Japanese police must have found the phone among her belongings and have been trying to gain access at least since November 24 in an effort to contact me for assistance on the case."

"..Are you sure about all of that?" said Lidner, sounding much less accusing than before.

"Quite sure," he said. He was not in the mood for any sentiment or sympathy or anything of the like at the moment, but he already knew what his team's next words would be.

"Near, I'm so sorry."

And there it was. His team was well aware of how close Near and Sayu had been in spite of how little about their relationship he had actually shared with them, so their condolences were to be expected. However, their apologies meant nothing and did nothing to change the fact that Sayu was dead, so he saw little point in acknowledging them.

Holding in a sigh, he sharpened his focus on what he was doing until he found what he was looking for. He discovered that Matthews was set to meet with the police chief at 9:00 AM on November 30, 2026. Perfect. That would give him more than enough time to get everything in order.

"Why didn't you say anything to any of us?" asked Lidner.

"We could have been more of a help to you," Rester added.

"There is not anything you could have done to help," he said, leaving out the part where he did not want his team to know about the children. He wasn't exactly sure why he didn't want them to know, just that he didn't. "What's done is done. What we need to focus on now is recovering the phone."

Again, his team took turns with asking questions and giving their input:

"So, why don't we contact the police chief and arrange a meeting with him instead of breaking into NPA's network and impersonating someone who is scheduled to meet with him?"

"It sounds like they have been trying very hard to contact you."

"Let's reach out to the Japanese police and let them know that we want to help."

"I will provide a consult, but I have no intentions of actively participating in the investigation," Near said, feeling their surprise radiate through him.

"Why not?"

"They are untrustworthy and as such are too risky to work with."

As usual, Lidner threw in her abrasive opinion, "You're still holding a grudge against them, after all this time?"

"It's not about holding a grudge. It never was," he said, maintaining his cool demeanor, "It is a matter of integrity. The Japanese police have been careless in the past regarding the secrecy of their cases and it's obvious they have done nothing to change this since then."

"Then why not let us perform our own investigation? We might be able to find something," said Rester.

"There is nothing to be found," he answered.

"How can you be sure of that unless we take a look?"

"After a thorough study of the case, it is my opinion that there will be no favorable resolution. The crime was not premeditated nor was she made a target for a specific reason. The circumstances, unfortunate as they were, were random happenstance, and it is unlikely that further evidence will ever surface."

"So you're cold-casing it, just like that?"

"Yes."

Lidner took her turn with more questions, "Then why go through all this effort of getting in to see the police chief just to reiterate to them what they already know, and why do it in such a roundabout way?"

"Because we need to recover the phone. If I call the police chief and tell him that I have no intentions of helping with their investigation, then he will certainly not have the phone returned to me. He will likely want to hold it as evidence, even though no evidence suggests it was anyone Sayu knew or anyone who had been in her home. But if I offer him my professional opinion, then there is a greater chance he will turn over the phone."

"I'm sure he will be happy to see you, knowing that you were hacking into their records to find all this out."

"They have been trying to contact me – that's the whole point. Which do you think they would prefer? To spend the rest of their lives trying to guess a password that doesn't exist – or that I spare them the time and effort, offer them my opinion, and leave?"

At that, it seemed that Lidner had nothing more to add. While she remained quiet for the time being, Rester interjected, "Near, I thought you made the phone so that you could remotely destroy it if need be."

"That's not something that I want done. The phone needs to be recovered, if at all possible. Too many resources were poured into customizing that phone to have it destroyed without trying to recover it first."

"Fair enough," said the large man with a sigh. "So, you're going to gain access to the police chief by posing as this Matthews guy. I don't think it's such a good idea for you to do this on your own. Even if the NPA appreciate your saving them some time in trying to contact you, I'm positive they will not appreciate your methods of fulfilling their wishes."

"Or appreciate seeing you at all, even if they are trying to contact you now," added Gevanni, "We did cut off all communications from them ten years ago, after all."

"That is why two of you will go with me," said Near. "Lidner and Rester, to be specific."

"Us?" said Lidner, exchanging a look with the commander and understanding his reasoning for choosing the two of them to accompany him, "Who will we be going as?"

"That part is easy," said Near with a small smirk now that things were falling into place, "Matthews does not speak Japanese, so Commander Rester will be my interpreter. And you, Lidner, will be my intern."

And that was how he came to be sitting in Police Chief Shuichi Aizawa's office, shielded by Lidner and Rester as the man himself came storming at him from across the room, shouting, "You son of a bitch! You have a lot of nerve showing up here like this!"

"Aizawa, wait-…!" Matsuda interjected, but his plea was apparently ignored because Near could hear a series of loud scuffling noises going on behind him as the police chief tried to break through the barrier created by his two bodyguards.

Near neither flinched nor moved from his position as he offered his cool reply, "I was under the impression that you wanted my assistance on a case – is this not true?"

"It is true, but why are you-…? How did you-…?"

"Irrelevant. Please have a seat so that we may discuss matters."

" _Irrelevant?!_ You hack into my computer and impersonate someone to break into my office and you call that _irrelevant_?!"

"Mr. Aizawa, sir, this will go over more smoothly if you stop trying to harm our boss," said Rester.

"Oh, I want to do more than harm him," the chief declared darkly, but nonetheless the sounds of the struggle taking place behind Near ceased as the man moved around the desk to sit down stiffly in his chair.

Matsuda followed closely behind him, standing by his boss' side, his wide eyes moving from person to person in astonishment. "Um, will someone please explain to me how all this came about…?"

Aizawa let out a long-suffering sigh, "He obviously had the phone bugged, Matsuda."

"Right, I get that, but-… _how_ …?"

"As I said – that is irrelevant," Near interrupted, "Now, regarding the case-.."

" _Sayu's_ case," Matsuda emphasized, finally snapping out of his stupor.

"I'm assuming this means you have also read everything in our system regarding her case, too, huh?" said Aizawa, an eyebrow twitching in irritation.

"Yes."

"So there's no need for me to recite any of the details to you. I guess that's a small grace," said the police chief, closing his eyes for a moment before opening them again and looking straight back at Near, not looking any more calm than he did a moment ago. "Very well. What can you tell us?"

Near knew that his next revelation could evoke another violent reaction, but there was no way around saying it either way, "Unfortunately - nothing."

In lieu of a violent reaction, Near received identical stunned looks from the two Japanese officers.

"Nothing? Are you serious?" said Matsuda in disbelief.

Aizawa expanded on his comrade's astonished disappointment, "So you expend all this effort of breaking in here to tell us that you have nothing to tell us? What the hell kind of sense does that make?"

"Would you have rather heard this over the phone?"

"No, I would have rather heard that you made a break in her case."

"I'm afraid there is not one – nor will there ever be," Near answered, feeling all eyes on him.

"Are you sure?"

"I am. After a thorough study of the case-.."

"..-Sayu's case," Matsuda reminded him again, this time with more anger.

"…-I have come to the same conclusion as you – the nature of the crime was random and opportunistic; she was not targeted; and it is unlikely that she was stalked or that it was anyone who had been in her home. It is equally unlikely that any further evidence will ever surface to either suggest otherwise or bring the perpetrator to justice," he explained, sounding like a broken record to himself at this point. The repetition of such facts, however, did nothing to curb the bitter taste they left behind on his tongue.

"Well, that is-…" Aizawa started, his thought trailing off to be left unfinished.

But it seemed Matsuda had more to say, because he suddenly spat, "I think that's a bunch of bullshit!"

All Near could do was stare back at him. Of course his answer sounded like a bunch of bullshit – it wasn't the answer they wanted. They were struggling through puzzle after puzzle to break into Sayu's phone to contact Near for help, only for him to not be able to offer any help. Of course being told he could not help would frustrate them. Near could at least understand that much.

"Why should we believe you?" Matsuda went on, "You haven't even taken part in the investigation yet!"

"And there is no need for me to. Crimes like these often go unresolved. As one who takes part in these investigations, I am sure this is something of which you are aware."

"Then why did we even bother trying to call you in here?!" Matsuda shouted, becoming more and more worked up by the second. "No, better yet, like Aizawa said, why even bother showing up here only to tell us you have nothing?!"

"I believe I did ask for my phone back in the very beginning."

"Right, the phone. Well, you can't have it back."

"Your only need for the phone was to contact me for assistance on the case. Since that purpose has been fulfilled and I cannot offer any assistance, I must ask that you please return my property."

"No," said Matsuda with a defiant stance.

"Very well," Near said with a small, bored sigh. "Commander?"

Without even a moment of hesitation, Commander Rester pulled a mobile phone from his pocket and punched in a number. Nobody moved – they only watched the formidable man as he began speaking into the phone, "For your own safety, I recommend putting that phone down immediately and stepping away."

He did not wait for any kind of response. He instead began punching in another series of numbers before slipping the phone back into his pocket.

"What the hell-…" Matsuda began.

"What the _hell_ was that all about?" Aizawa demanded, before starting when his desk phone began to ring. He let out a loud, heavy sigh, picked it up, and said, "What is it? What happened? …Are you serious?"

Near watched as the police chief's gaze turned from angry to deadly and locked with his. "How dare you jeopardize the safety of my staff like that?!" he snapped.

Matsuda made his own panicked inquiry - "What happened, Aizawa?!" – but was ignored.

"I'm very sorry, Mr. Aizawa, but I was left with no choice," said Near. "And no harm will come to your staff – unless, of course, they try to touch it."

Eyes wide, he quickly returned to his phone, "No, don't touch it. Just leave it alone – it'll be dealt with later. …I do have an idea what happened, but we'll discuss it later. Again – do not touch that phone." With that, he all but dropped the phone back onto the receiver and looked like he wanted to either defenestrate Near or defenestrate himself – perhaps Near first and then himself, whichever.

"Will someone please tell me what the hell that was all about?" Matsuda insisted.

"The phone is destroyed, Matsuda. He had it rigged up with explosives," Aizawa answered while rubbing the bridge of his nose.

It took Matsuda several seconds of realizing all the horrible implications before he reacted, and when he did, his reaction was almost as explosive as what had just happened to Sayu's phone.

"..You asshole!" Matsuda hollered, rounding back on Near. "How could you give something like that to Sayu?! It could have hurt or killed her! Or what if the kids-… Wait a minute… The kids…"

Near watched as Matsuda's expression changed from anger, to dawning realization, and then back to anger all in rapid succession. And then, quite suddenly, Matsuda was the one charging at him instead of Aizawa. Somehow, this was quite a bit more frightening than being threatened by the police chief, although Near still did not react.

" _You-…!_ " Matsuda roared, fists raised and bumping cleanly into Lidner, who stopped him by grabbing one of his wrists and twisting his arm around behind his back.

Matsuda cried out in both pain and frustration, but miraculously kept up his struggle, even as Aizawa rose from his seat and shouted, "Matsuda, stop! What the hell?!" He then turned his glare back on Near, "Tell her to let him go!"

"Not while he is threatening my person, Mr. Aizawa."

Not backing down in the least, Matsuda continued his incensed outburst, "You're the reason I got that phone call this morning! You're the reason my application was 'suspended'!"

"I'm afraid I do not know to what you are referring, Mr. Matsuda."

"The kids! My application for adoption! You know about them, don't you?! Why else would my application have been suspended?!" Matsuda fumed, his face red and jaw quivering in anger.

Near would have loved in that moment to be able to say that he didn't know what Matsuda was talking about, but unfortunately he knew better. Up until that point, he had been doing his best to ignore his suspicions that there had been something more going on between Sayu and Matsuda – first with the case stating that children had specifically called Matsuda upon realizing their mother was missing; second with that there was an engagement ring missing from her body; third with Matsuda's heavy involvement in the case, including how he was the one who had found the phone and was pushing the most to get into it; and now the fact that Near's discovery of the children had subsequently interrupted Matsuda's adoption of the children.

Now that that last piece of the puzzle had fallen into place, ignoring Matsuda's personal involvement with Sayu was no longer an option. With as little as Near actually understood about why Sayu had kept their children from him, what he understood even less was how and why she had become involved with Matsuda in the meantime. Something about it made him want to leap out of his chair and attack the man who had taken his place in Sayu's life – which was certainly a foreign feeling for Near. _Matsuda_ was the one who had put five fucking bullets into her brother – _FIVE!_ – and yet she had forgiven _him_ , but not Near himself? Where was the justice in that? None of it added up in his mind, and because of that, he felt a tempestuous trifecta of anger, bitterness, and resentment over all of it burn into him. It burned into him so deeply, the pain of that burn became the icy exterior he showed to the rest of the room. It was all he could allow them to see. The alternative was far too terrifying.

"Yes, I do know about them," he answered, his cool, calm tone standing out in stark comparison to Matsuda's red hot fury, "Suffice to say, they are no longer your concern."

Thankfully, Near noticed that his team seemed to be robbed enough of words that they remained silent, albeit stunned in light of the recent development. Their questions that he would no doubt have to answer later would be another thing altogether, but he would deal with that then.

"No longer my conc-… You can't just come and take the children!"

"Actually, I can. I am their father."

"You don't know the first thing about them! What proof do you have that they are yours?"

"What proof do you have that they are not?"

"…This isn't some stupid game, you heartless bastard! They just lost their mother!"

"I am well aware of the circumstances. Why else would I be here?"

"Exactly! If she were still alive, you would not be here at all, which is all the more reason why you should leave the children alone and go away!"

"I see your logic is as flawless as ever, Matsuda."

"Yeah, whatever! Go ahead and call me an idiot! I don't care! The fact is that Sayu kept them from you for a reason!"

"Could that reason be that you gave her the misguided notion that I would somehow bring harm to them?"

"Says the guy who gave their mother an EXPLODING PHONE!"

"It would have only done so on my command, as was just demonstrated."

"Yeah, well, even so-… Who would trust someone who gave them something with explosives in it?"

"That discovery was only made by you after the fact – your argument is invalid."

Matsuda scoffed, "You know, it's things like that that make me even more right. Sayu never would have believed you would do something like giving her a phone filled with explosives because she was way too trusting of you. But she didn't know the side of you that the rest of us knew."

"That's an interesting accusation, coming from the same group of men who trusted a serial killer and allowed him to lead them around on his own case for over half a decade." Both former task force members opened their mouths to issue a rude retort, but Near pressed on without giving them the chance, "And regardless of how you feel, I am their father and that gives me every right to claim them."

"Then I'll ask again - what proof have you submitted that you are their father? Because I don't believe for one second that you have submitted _anything_ to prove as much."

"Believe whatever you want – as I stated previously, the children are no longer your concern."

For just a few seconds, there was silence as Matsuda's eyes swept from person to person and then back to Near. He then seemed to relax substantially, which was a bit disconcerting even to Near. Finally, he said, "No, I'm right. You're bluffing. You _haven't_ submitted any proof. There's no way you would ever put anything about yourself on record like that – not voluntarily. And not only that, but why did the agency call to tell me that my application was 'suspended' and not 'rejected'? I think it's because you haven't submitted any proof of paternity and you are only planning on sending them away to that Wammy's place you yourself came from."

In truth, Near was surprised by Matsuda's astute observations. It seemed he had underestimated the other man's deductive abilities – something that was perhaps being driven only by his desire to claim the children as his own - but still, he was not concerned, at least not until the next words out of Matsuda's mouth.

"Well, let me tell you that you are wasting your time. As a Japanese citizen, my rights supersede yours, especially where adoption is concerned," Matsuda said, "There's not a chance in hell you're going to send the kids away to Wammy's and have them turned into another L. So go ahead and throw as much money as you want at the agency and the government – it'll never happen. Even if you man up and try to use your identity as L as leverage, you haven't been of any use to Japan in over ten years – what makes you think the government is going to give you any more clout over me, an officer who has been looking out for Japan in the meantime?"

Who was Matsuda kidding? Of course Near would win over him – Roger would see to it that the children were secured and brought to Wammy's, just as they had discussed. Still, what if…?

No, that would not happen. His children would not be raised by that idiot. He could not even begin to fathom why he was so adamant about whose possession the children ended up in, but he knew he would never allow them to end up with Matsuda. Once they got back to the limo where Gevanni was waiting, Near would simply call Roger and clear up this little contingency. Everything would be fine. The children would go to Wammy's where they would be safe and would receive the best education money could buy, and Near would never again have to deal with the man who had convinced Sayu that he was dangerous, that he was worthless, and that she and the children would be better off without him.

The pause was interrupted by the phone on the police chief's desk going off again. "What is it this time?" Aizawa growled. "Matthews…? Yes, I know he is already signed in-…" The man let out another aggravated sigh. "I'll have to explain later, but tell him that some things came up and his services are no longer required." A brief pause. "Yes, we will still pay him for his time."

As this conversation ended, Near slid his leg off the chair, slowly stood, and said, "I believe our business here is finished."

As he stood, Commander Rester removed the chair from behind him while Agent Lidner released the now-motionless Matsuda, who was all but smirking victoriously at him. "Thanks for nothing," he sniped.

"I believe it is you to whom thanks is owed," said Near softly, being mindful of his manners and bowing to the two Japanese officers, "Good day to you."

His team was thankfully silent all the way up until they reached their temporary set-up at a nearby hotel. The moment they began to ask questions, Near cut them off. "I need to contact Roger to make further arrangements regarding the children," he said, glossing right over the fact that his team was just now learning that their boss did actually have children. "I would appreciate your allowing me the time to do so."

Gevanni, Lidner, and Rester each exchanged a look of concern before quietly moving into the other room to allow Near some privacy. Once he was alone, he withdrew from his pocket one of his own phones, the one he had built to correspond with the phone he had given to Sayu all those years ago – the same phone the commander had used earlier to destroy Sayu's phone. Near's corresponding phone was useless now, of course, for it had been built with the sole ability to communicate with _her_ phone and _her_ phone alone. It would never be of any use to him ever again, seeing as its counterpart was destroyed.

He felt his hand curl tightly around his phone, and before he knew what he was doing, he was snapping the phone in half and launching it against the wall as hard as he could. The force of the blow left behind a mark on the wall, but the phone itself had been built sturdily enough that it bore no additional damage. Near let out a scoff. He should have filled his phone with explosives, too.


	7. Chapter 7

**I just want to say that I really appreciate everyone's feedback on this so far! I truly appreciate everyone's opinions. :)**

 **Also, sorry that this chapter is a bit shorter than the last one. It is kind of transitional, but I hope you like it anyway.**

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When Near called Roger to explain everything that had taken place at the NPA headquarters, he had in his mind that his former caretaker would chuckle at Matsuda's ridiculous claims and reassure him that their plans to acquire the children would go over smoothly.

Reassurance was not what he received.

"I'm afraid that there is a possibility that Matsuda is right," said Roger, his tone both cautious and grave. "He is a Japanese citizen – we are merely another orphanage, one in another country, at that. It is possible - probable, even - that they will consider his application before ours."

For once, Near was at a loss for words. What was he supposed to do now? Was all his expended effort really going to go to waste now, and at the hands of that idiot? There was just no way that he could lose this – he never lost. There had to be a way around this.

"What can we do about it?"

"Well," Roger ventured with a sigh, "There is only one other option that I can think of that would guarantee that you would get custody, but I don't think you're going to like it."

"And that is...?"

"Don't be daft, Nate - it is very unbecoming of you."

Near let out a sigh of his own, "I have to prove paternity."

"Right. Understandably, I expect that you will not want to take things that far."

"Take things that far, huh..." Near echoed, trailing off in thought.

Just how far _would_ he take things, he wondered. And for that matter, what were these "things" he and Roger were referring to? Well, he supposed, it encompassed everything he was willing to do to gain custody of the children, especially now that his original plan was out the window. As for how far he would take things, he would say that once he was willing to take "things" even a little bit in any direction, he was willing to take them all the way. That was simply how he operated. He had already gone through the trouble of flying to Japan, putting his cases on the back burner, presenting himself under a false identity to gain visual confirmation of the children, and starting the process of getting them to Wammy's, all while avoiding the bulk of his team's curiosity… But was he really willing to go through with the process of proving paternity?

He certainly was not willing to give in, that much was for sure - not so easily, and especially not to someone like Matsuda. How Matsuda had managed to get inside his head was still something that baffled Near. No one had ever accomplished such a thing before - to reach something so deep inside of him that he didn't even know it existed (let alone how delicate it was) until it was being ripped out of him and into the open for all to see, and all this at the hands of the task force's least intelligent officer. He had faced death gods, killer notebooks, and homicidal maniacs from all over the globe, including the deadliest homicidal maniac of them all at the very beginning of his career, but none of that could even begin to measure up to the terrifying uncertainty he felt when faced with fatherhood, all came with the title, or the thought that someone might take it away from him before he even had a chance.

Could he really do this? _Should_ he really do this? The question of whether or not he _should_ was not up to anyone but himself. It might have been up to Sayu in the past, but she was gone now and her opinion no longer mattered. What mattered was what Near wanted, which currently consisted of two things – to continue in his position as L, and to keep his children away from Matsuda, if for no other reason than to spite the audacious prick.

The way he saw it, there was no other choice. Allowing the children to end up in Matsuda's care was out of the question. Near did not believe that the man was inherently bad or anything like that, but under no circumstances did he want his children to be raised by him, especially not after reaching the conclusion that it was Matsuda's fault that Sayu had never reached out to him. Near could never believe that she would have done such a thing without someone else's influence. And in any case, Near felt he could adapt to anything as long as it meant that Matsuda did not get the children.

In order for any of this to happen, though, he would have to prove paternity. To do that, he would have to come forward with his identity – one of them, at least. The only one that was actually registered as a citizen anywhere was, in fact, his actual identity as Nate River, citizen of Great Britain. That identity was in no way linked to his identity as L, of course, nor was this information documented anywhere. There was no way anyone could get any information on him unless they found Wammy's and flat-out tortured Roger, but that man was as stubborn as they came and took his pledge of protecting L seriously. Even so, they would have to somehow make the connection that L was Nate River, that he was from Great Britain, and that he was from Wammy's to even get to Roger in the first place.

The only other individuals who knew all of that were certain members of the Japanese NPA. Even with all the contention between them, Near knew that none of them would ever reveal his identity out of spite. To reveal any of that would be to reveal that the original L was dead, which would then open up a can of worms regarding the Kira case. The former Kira task force members would not want to do that because much of the case information was not documented anywhere with the Japanese police, seeing as much of it had been gathered by the task force while under L after being forced to separate their investigation from that of the NPA.

Failing that, his only other option would be to arrange to have them killed to protect his identity – but that was definitely not something Near was willing to do. Besides, if none of them had betrayed him in the time since he had severed ties with them ten years ago, it was highly unlikely that they ever would. He was not particularly worried about Matsuda either – the man could be volatile and stupid, but never would he do anything that could intentionally harm another person unless it was the difference between life and death.

All that aside, there was no way either the Japanese or British governments would allow him to submit to a paternity test and gain guardianship of the children unless he revealed his identity as Nate River, which led him into another one of those "things".

Besides having his name and DNA on record, just how involved would he need to be in the children's lives and them in his? Even more concerning – how would he present himself to the children? Would they need to know that he was L? No, they would not need to know that. He could just tell them that he was a private detective and let that be the end of it. He couldn't see how he could get away with keeping the fact that he was a detective from the children, seeing as most of his time was spent working on cases. Something also told him that his casework would only fuel their curiosity and they might bring it up to their friends at school. Then again, from his brief observation of them at Skyreach, he was pretty sure they had no friends outside of each other, but that was beside the point.

Of course, Near could always skip all of this and send them straight to Wammy's after proving his paternity to them, but he had a feeling that there would still be a waiting period before he could do so. It's not like he could acquire the children one day and send them off on a flight to Winchester, England the next. Either way, the children would still end up in his possession for a long enough period of time that it would require a more permanent stay for he and his team in the interim.

This was actually something he had already begun to look into. In a separate conversation with Roger the day before, they had discussed the possibility of setting up operations at the old task force headquarters – the skyscraper L had built specifically for the Kira investigation. After L's death, the building and all its custom installations were far too valuable to simply decommission or sell entirely, so the bottom 13 floors had been repurposed into a hotel to generate revenue to help pay for the building, while the top 10 floors had been reserved and made inaccessible to anyone who did not have access to the underground parking garage, which would be anyone outside of Roger or Near himself. Much of the old equipment L had filled his command center with remained, collecting dust but still in the possession of Wammy's House and presumably still in working order. If it was not all in working order, Near would just have it cleared out and have new equipment installed in its place.

This space would be ideal for a more permanent base of operations as well as protected residence for the children while he waited for Roger to finish making arrangements on his end. He was even sure that he and his team could have it all completed within a week's time. From there, things could continue on as normal – the children would be able to continue going about their lives, going to school and the like, and Near would be able to proceed with business as usual. Nothing would really change, per se, save for the presence of the children themselves, but Near felt he could adjust to their presence for a few weeks, or months if necessary, and then send them to Wammy's once everything was said and done.

From there, he was confident that everything would work out. There was just one thing left – one contingency – that gave Near any sort of pause, and that was-…

"You realize what all that means and what all the risks are, don't you?" said Roger, suddenly breaking the silence and interrupting Near's thoughts. Near had almost forgot that he was still on the phone with him, but it seemed they were still on the same page, at any rate. "Aside from it interfering with your casework, what if someone at some point learned about the children and used them as leverage against you? Would you be prepared to make the appropriate sacrifices to ensure their safety?"

Again, Near was quiet as he allowed Roger's words to sink in. Some foreign part of him screamed that _of course_ he would make the appropriate sacrifices to ensure their safety, but then again, he had never had to put himself out there in such a way before. Even when it had come to confronting Light Yagami, Near had made absolutely sure that all his ducks were in a row before proceeding. This was something entirely different – it was unpredictable. He knew would never do anything that would put himself or his team at risk, at least not without informing them first, but if someone were to put all the pieces together and harm the children because of him…

Well, that was part of why he was going to send them to Wammy's as soon as he could. Roger was right – their presence _would_ interfere with his casework, which was not something he was willing to give up, but more than that, he knew that having the children around permanently would be too large of a risk for everyone involved. The only way their safety and future could truly be ensured was if he stuck to the plan.

"As L, you simply cannot afford that kind of risk," Roger continued after again receiving no answer, "And not only that, but be honest with me, and with yourself - is this something you are truly prepared for? Not just the financial responsibility and all the inherent risks, but emotionally?"

For a moment, Near said nothing. He only looked down at himself and fiddled with the buttons on his pajamas, wishing he had some of his darts or something to keep his hands occupied, but all that stuff was in the other room where his team was waiting.

Emotionally. Emotions… Now that was something he had not considered. People said he was damaged – damaged in such a way that he could never recover. Most accepted this as the case and believed he was a psychopath, incapable of feeling anything. While growing up, a certain blond-haired nemesis of his had certainly had no problem with telling him as much either. Near liked to believe that they were all right in their assessment and that he was incapable of human things such as feelings and emotions – it made him less impulsive and better able to focus on solving the puzzle, which was all that mattered.

But then there was that broken phone lying on the floor just a few feet away…

He finally closed his eyes, gently tugged on his hair, and muttered, "I don't know."

"Well-.." Roger said, sounding taken off guard by his honesty, "Maybe you should talk things over with your team before making any decisions. This will affect them as much as it will affect you."

"Right."

"Let me know whatever it is you decide. I will continue to do as much as I can to get them here until I hear otherwise."

"Thank you, Roger."

Near sat there for a few minutes afterwards, just staring at the floor, twisting his hair over and over, and thinking over everything. He then collected the remnants of his phone and used another phone to call his team back into the room. By the time they crossed the threshold, he had already made up his mind.

* * *

"Did either you know any of this was going on?"

"No."

"God, no."

Lidner shook her head along with her comrades, because she also had no idea any of this was going on - well, until now, anyway. "How did we not see this?"

"What do you mean?" said Gevanni from his spot on one of the beds while his two comrades stood nearby. "How could we have seen it?"

"Yeah, I mean-… _children_?" said Rester, obviously as dazed by the revelation as the rest of them. "That's the absolute last thing I could have ever expected."

"Yeah," Gevanni agreed with a nod.

"I mean," said Lidner, who still could not get her head around all of Near's covert behavior from the last few days, "It was right under our noses. Dropping everything and going to Japan, going to the orphanage, everything about Sayu-…"

"Well, it didn't help that Roger covered for him," said Rester somewhat defensively.

Lidner scoffed, but nonetheless concurred. "That damn old man."

"This explains his odd behavior while at the orphanage the other day, too," said Gevanni.

"Right, you said you thought something was up with him."

Gevanni nodded and elaborated, "Yeah, we weren't there for very long – which I didn't think much of at the time because I figured he knew what he was doing. But then he looked kind of like he had seen a ghost and we left in a hurry afterwards. I've never seen anything like that from him before. I didn't know what to make of it, but I thought maybe it was because the orphanage itself made him feel uncomfortable."

"I could see that," said Rester.

"Still-… _children_?" said Lidner.

"I thought you gave him prophylactics," Gevanni pointed out as he looked at Lidner.

"I did," she confirmed, pressing her lips into a thin line and crossing her arms, "I guess he didn't bother to use them."

"No, I don't think he would be that irresponsible," Gevanni disagreed. "I'm betting he did use them, one broke, and they didn't think much of it."

"Or Sayu was on birth control and they decided not to use them because of that."

Shifting in his seat in front of the security monitors, Rester interjected, "..Aren't either of you at least a little weirded out by the direction of this conversation?"

"Oh, yeah, definitely," said Gevanni with a small, humorless smirk.

"Maybe we should get out of detective mode for now and try to think of this for what it is instead," Rester suggested.

Gevanni was silent for a moment before he prompted, "Okay. So-…."

"Near has kids," Lidner said, as though saying it out loud would make it seem any less strange. Unfortunately, it did nothing to alleviate the strangeness of the situation and only succeeded in adding to the awkward atmosphere.

"Right," said the two male members of their team, and then there was another lull in the conversation.

Needing more details on the situation and not able to take the silence any longer, Lidner pulled out her phone and accessed the internet. She did a quick search on Sayu Yagami, read through the first article that popped up, and said, "Evidently he has twins."

"What makes you say that?" queried Rester.

"Well, how else would he have not known about either of them? If one was born before the other, surely Near would have known…"

"Got it."

"Also, this article says they are twins - a boy and a girl," said Lidner, gesturing with her phone on which the article was displayed and passing it to Rester so that he could see. She then sighed and shook her head. "What a terrible thing to happen."

"I get that that's terrible and all, for sure," said Gevanni with a grim look. "But what else is terrible is her not telling him about his kids. How could she do that to him?"

"Especially since she still had the phone Near gave her," Rester agreed with a nod, "I wonder what her reasons were."

"It doesn't matter what her reasoning was – it's still a shitty thing to do," Gevanni went on adamantly, "God, if someone did that to me-… I don't even know what I'd do."

"You don't think he's going to try to get custody, do you?" Lidner asked.

Gevanni shrugged, looking as nonplussed as the others. "Hard to say. Judging by that loud bang we heard earlier, I'm going to say he's at least considering it."

"But that would mean revealing his identity, at the very least - giving up casework at the most. I can't see him being too willing to do that," said Rester.

Lidner's eyebrows came together. "Not even for his own kids?"

Gevanni shrugged again and repeated, "Hard to say. Honestly, I never pictured Near as father material. Be honest - did any of you?" The question was apparently so rhetorical that it received not a single response, not even so much as a shaken head.

"I guess we will have to wait and see."

For the next 20 or so minutes, Near's team went on discussing all the possible implications of the day's events. Each of them took their turn with trying to steer the conversation into other topics, but each of them failed as the conversation inevitably veered right back to talk about Near and his children. They even tried to pull up more information about Sayu and the kids on the internet, but all they could find were articles reiterating the facts that Near had already given them.

This all would have continued on for much longer, but Gevanni soon received a call from Near, announcing that he was ready for his team to return to the other room so that they could discuss a few things. "A few things" was putting it lightly, he thought, but he informed his teammates and together the three of them ventured back into the room where their boss was waiting.


	8. Chapter 8

**Short chapter is short, and I apologize for that, but I feel that this is the chapter's natural length. Hope you like this one. :)**

* * *

Chihiro's first thought when Ms. Yuki told her that her dad was coming to pick her up in a couple days was, _Finally_. _Finally_ she and Soichiro could get out of this awful place and be with the only person they could call their dad, Matsuda, like they probably would have been were their mother still alive.

Her second thought was wondering why Matsuda had not called to inform her or Soichiro of this. He was usually very communicative with them on such matters, so she was not sure what to make of it.

But then her third thought was that it didn't matter. They were finally going to get out of this place and go home, and _that_ was all that mattered.

Of course, everything that had happened to her mother mattered, too, but Matsuda had promised to tell them any news as soon as it was received. The fact that they had not received any communication at all in several weeks told Chihiro all she needed to know, which was nothing.

Nothing new had been found on her mother's case. Chihiro wasn't sure how to feel about that. Well, it wasn't that she didn't know _how_ to feel about it, it was just that she felt so _many_ things, it was hard to give the conglomerate of feelings a single name. The staff called it grief, which could consist of a wide array of emotions, but Chihiro felt it mostly consisted of two very distinct feelings: anguish and anger.

Anguish was always the first thing she felt whenever she thought of her mother, which was a nearly constant thing. It played so heavily in the background of everything else that it was almost paralyzing. In fact, she was certain that it would have paralyzed her, as it had just about paralyzed her brother, were it not for the fact that she also felt so angry over it.

Actually, angry barely scratched the surface – she felt downright furious over what had happened to her mother and everything that had taken place since then. No, not furious – even _that_ was too gentle of a word. Murderous was the most appropriate word, she felt. In the absence of justice, all Chihiro could do was hope that somehow, somewhere, the man who had murdered her mother would meet the same fate. It didn't matter that her mother had once told her that it was wrong to wish bad things on other people, or to wish for revenge, or even to wish that Kira was real so that he would take care of things. This was different. This was her _mother_. How could she not wish for misfortune to befall the man who had abducted, beaten, raped, and murdered her mother?

It was bad enough that her grandmother had died less than a year ago and now her mother was gone too, leaving them with absolutely no family. It was bad enough being stuck at this orphanage where she was now forced to coexist with a bunch of other children whom she wanted nothing to do with. It was bad enough that, while they allowed her to carry her violin around with her during certain times during the day, they did not allow her to play it as she pleased, as it was a distraction to the other children. But what was absolutely intolerable was being separated from her brother.

The orphanage, of course, had a strict rule of keeping the boys and girls in separate rooms. Chihiro had never spent a day, or night, of her life away from her brother, so this struck her especially hard. She knew her brother was taking it in equal stride, which was to say he was not taking it in stride at all.

Because the doors to the dormitories could not be locked should there be a fire or other emergency, Chihiro and Soichiro had at first taken turns with sneaking into each other's beds at night. However, this was short-lived once they were sold out by their peers, and after the staff threatened to take Chihiro's violin away, her brother made her promise that they would stay in their rooms so that she did not have to give up something that was so important to her. Her brother's adamant request left her no choice but to begrudgingly accept their nighttime separation.

This did not mean that either their peers or the staff were off the hook for keeping her apart from her brother. She refused to speak. She refused to interact. She refused to do anything at all besides adhere to the bare minimum of the orphanage's guidelines. There was a dark, heated aura now radiating out of her in such a way that it was affecting not only her roommates, but also the staff. They were so worried by the look in her eyes, she had overheard them say, that they consulted with the on-site counsellor, who then explained that her grief was manifesting itself in the form of fettered rage. He assured the staff that this was quite normal, as everyone experiences grief differently, but seeing as her and her brother's behavior was becoming worrisome, he agreed to sit with the twins and try to help them work through their grief.

The counsellor had chosen to meet with her brother first - privately - which was a mistake. Forcing her brother, who was so shy and withdrawn under the circumstances, to speak would be impossible, and Chihiro knew it would only push him further back inside himself or upset him - or both. When Soichiro slunk out of the room some time later, Chihiro saw only his barely-concealed tears and decided right then and there that she was going to give that presumptuous counsellor all the hell she could muster. The only thing that might have held her back was the sound of her mother's voice in the back of her mind, telling her that it was not okay to say things to intentionally hurt someone else, even if it was true and even if that person had hurt her or her brother first.

That idea quickly went out the window during her very first, and very last, meeting with the counsellor, when the man claimed to understand how she felt.

Her argument started with her asking just how much could he (the counsellor) understand her feelings when his parents were still alive. Instead of asking her how she knew that his parents were still alive, the counsellor chose to use her response to encourage her to put her anger to more constructive use. She promptly threw it all back at him by demanding to know just how constructive was she supposed to be when her mother was dead, she was physically separated from her brother and her violin for a good portion of the day, and she was surrounded all day by a bunch of stupid kids and therefore never got any privacy. The counsellor pointed out that she, incidentally, was also a kid and they were all in the same boat together. An incensed Chihiro then in turn made her point by providing the counsellor with a list of all the children whose parents, while they had abandoned said children under various circumstances, still came to visit them and remained a part of their lives – so _no_ , they were _not_ all in the same boat. The counsellor then suggested that she try to make a better effort of relating to others, because the more she could relate to others, the easier it would be for her to cope with her own loss. She remarked that she was not suicidal so obviously she _was_ coping and that hearing someone else's life story would have no effect on hers. She then demanded that he stop placating her, stated that he stop trying to use his cookie-cutter motivational poster speeches and lifelong personal failures as a desperate attempt to impact the lives of children whose plights he clearly did not understand, and finally pointed out that going by the mental states of many of her fellow orphans, he would have been better off sticking to bullying others rather than trying to use a career as a counsellor as a way of alleviating his own guilt.

Thankfully, she did not have to speak to the counsellor anymore after that. Not so thankfully, her actions resulted in her violin being confiscated for a week. She postulated that Skyreach probably would have tried to pass her off to another orphanage so as to not have to deal with her anymore, but could not because someone had already submitted an application to adopt her and her brother. That suited her just fine – at least they stopped trying to sugar-coat everything and stopped treating her like she was some clueless kid, and when her violin was returned to her, everything went back to what was now the relative norm. She still did not get the privacy that she wanted, but she supposed there was not much they could do about that when their already limited space was overcrowded anyway.

In any case, she would not have to put up with this place for much longer now that Matsuda would be taking her and Soichiro home in a couple days. All she had to do was mind herself until then and the time would pass by more smoothly. She was sure that she could accomplish that much, even with all the inane gossip about her among the other girls in her room.

In the meantime, she wondered what life was going to be like once they moved in with Matsuda. She wondered if Matsuda had rented out a new apartment so they could live with him, or if he had decided to buy the Yagami house. It would be weird and uncomfortable to go back to their house, she would admit… but she would rather be there than anywhere else. It was the closest she would ever again be to her mother (and grandmother) and she simply could not imagine living anywhere else.

She also wondered what school was going to be like for her and her brother once they returned. All of their classmates would know what happened… Would they still treat them like outcasts? She doubted that Rintaro Morimoto and his lackeys would resume stalking and beating them up – he at least had the sense to stay away from Soichiro and herself after she threatened to post his name on the internet – but their other classmates would probably look at them even more weirdly now. Or even worse – they might look at them with sympathy. That was the last thing she wanted – to be approached with sympathy by the same people who teased her and called her names on a regular basis. Whether their sympathy was synthetic or genuine was irrelevant – they had already shown her how untrustworthy they were and so she wanted nothing to do with them.

Maybe she was overthinking it. Maybe nothing at all would change. That was probably for the best. It would be one less thing she would have to try to restructure herself around, a task she wasn't sure she could accomplish even without having to worry about how others would treat her. Who cared what any of them thought anyway? They were all a bunch of narrow-minded, brain-washed idiots who talked about celebrities and believed in non-existent gods, and from what her mother had told her, that would only get worse as they all grew older. The only people who truly mattered to her were Soichiro and Matsuda. She was pretty sure her brother felt the same, so she decided that the two of them should just return to school like normal and pick up where they left off as far as all that was concerned.

With that in mind, it was much easier to coast through the next couple days while they waited to go home. The morning that Matsuda was to come collect them and take them to wherever home would now be, Chihiro met Soichiro in the dining room and together they sat, side-by-side, eating their breakfast in companionable silence. This would be their last meal at this place, an exciting thought which was shared through their small, hopeful smile at each other. In just a few hours, none of these people would mean anything to them anymore – not that they meant anything to them anyway, but from now on they would no longer be forced to interact with them. In just a few hours, they would be reunited with the man who they considered their dad. In just a few hours, they would get to go _home_.

As Chihiro gathered her few belongings and began to pack, she ignored the various looks she was receiving from her roommates. Some of them were bound to be jealous that she was going home, but then many of them had mothers who were still alive and that was something for which Chihiro would have gladly traded them. Thankfully, though, she had very little to pack, so she did not have to endure their stares for long. Most of her stuff had been left at the house anyway, which worked out for the better in this situation.

When it was finally time to meet with Matsuda and go home, the two of them were called into the director's office to await his arrival. Chihiro could not remember the last time she felt so excited. She wasn't sure she had _ever_ felt so excited before. Suddenly, everything that had happened while at the orphanage did not mean much of anything anymore. They would somehow have to learn to pick up what was left of their lives, but at least they would have Matsuda and Matsuda would have them.

That all changed in an instant when the door to the director's office opened and in walked not Matsuda, but a man Chihiro had never seen before. As if that was not bewildering enough, the man's appearance was also what most would probably consider bizarre. Many things about him stood out, especially in comparison to the rest of the room, but perhaps the most eye-catching of his features were his stark white hair and the equally-white pair of pajamas he was wearing. He looked like a humanoid manifestation of the accumulating snow from outside – he would have to be, because apparently the only winter effect he was adorning was a long, blue, woolen scarf. Wasn't he cold?

Honestly, though, who wore pajamas out in public, and in wintertime, no less? Did the old counsellor quit and was this man his replacement? She somehow doubted it. He looked like he just rolled out of bed and couldn't be bothered with getting dressed. Maybe that was what he was going for, though. Maybe he was wearing the pajamas in an odd attempt to connect with the children he would be counselling. Well, that wouldn't make much sense, considering Chihiro and Soichiro were leaving the orphanage.

No, this juvenile appearance was actually a reflection of who the man was as a person. He may be an adult, but deep down he was childish. This was further illustrated by the way he shuffled into the room without really picking up his feet and the loosely-tied tennis shoes the man was wearing, as if he had no knowledge of how to present himself to others. Either that or he simply did not give a damn, but she felt it more likely was a result of prolonged isolation.

From these things, she could tell that he was reclusive and rarely left the comfort of his home. This meant he likely also had servants or butlers or someone else who tended to his needs from the outside world. Ah, she was right. The man's cohort was there, a few paces behind him, waiting just outside the room as if to give them all some semblance of privacy. This pretense of privacy was marred by the fact that the woman was peering into the room, and Chihiro had the feeling that she was not there because she was needed for anything, but to offer support.

So he was childish, socially inept, and apparently well off enough to afford a bodyguard of some sort, but-.. who the heck was he and why was he here? Her confusion was not helped at all by the fact that no one was making a move or saying anything, but then the man's gaze met her own and her hundred-mile-an-hour thoughts came to a hard halt.

His dark, gray eyes were rimmed with fatigue, suggesting the condition was chronic, but otherwise they were identical to her own. Those eyes furthermore seemed to be reading her as much as she was reading them. And then she noticed for the first time that he actually somewhat resembled her brother – not exactly, but just enough for her to recognize the similarities. With that, she suddenly understood with perfect clarity who it was she was looking at and exactly why he was there.

This understanding was apparently not shared by her brother, because for the first time since their mother's death, he finally spoke to someone other than Chihiro herself and he only wanted to know one thing:

"Where is Matsuda?"


	9. Chapter 9

Near was not at all surprised by the boy's inquiry upon his appearance – in fact, he had been expecting it. That did not, however, mean that he was well-equipped with dealing with children and their feelings. When the director took a moment to kindly answer the boy's question and explain that their biological father was here to claim them instead of what would have been their adoptive father, the boy's immediate response left Near without any knowledge of how to handle the situation. As a result, all he could do was stand back and observe while the following exchange occurred.

"NO!" the boy cried, squeezing in closer to his sister, his eyes wide and containing an array of volatile emotions, "I don't want to go with him! I want to go with Matsuda!"

"I can understand why you might feel that way," said the director in a gentle but firm tone, "But this man is your father. By law, he is-…"

"I don't care! I want to go home with Matsuda!"

"Young man-…" the director said slowly, "Your father will be taking you to your new home."

"I don't want a new home! I want to go home with Matsuda!" he protested.

"We cannot send you home with Matsuda."

"Then I want to go home with my mom!"

The director sighed, but remained patient and kind. "I am sorry that your mother can't take you home, son."

"Yes, she can," the boy insisted, rubbing his eyes while his voice wavered, "She just has to come back for us."

Near watched as the director rose from his seat, reached out towards the boy, and gently placed a hand on his shoulder. "I am sorry that she cannot come back for you. We would send you home with her if we could. But your father is here and he wants to take you home."

Whatever semblance of control the boy had over his emotions was all at once gone. Near and the others could only watch as he shook his head, roughly pulled away from the director, and melted away into tears and loud, gasping sobs. "I'm not going with him! I want Mom! I want to go home!"

The director pressed his lips together and tried again, "Young man-…"

But the boy roughly pulled away from him again, absolutely refusing to cooperate. "No! Leave me alone! I want Matsuda! I want Mom!" He kept repeating these words while ripping himself away at any and all attempts to contain him.

Near could feel all of Lidner's concern exuding from the woman as she remained standing behind him. Of course, she and the rest of his team had expressed their doubts and concerns when Near first revealed to them that he would be submitting himself to DNA testing in order to gain custody of the children. Beyond their concerns about making such a risky move as far as keeping his identity concealed, they also expressed great concern over how the children would react to suddenly being taken in by a man claiming to be their father, a father they had never known. Also, none of them had any experience dealing with children – none like this, anyway – so he understood their concern. He felt a little anxious himself over the whole ordeal, even more so now as he played witness to the boy's total and utter meltdown. He had never second-guessed any of his decisions before – not even keeping the truth about the Kira case from Sayu – but second-guessing his decision now was precisely what he was doing.

For what felt like several long minutes, the room was nothing but a cacophony of the boy's uncontrolled wailing and the director's futile efforts at calming him down. The girl had been silent and still throughout the entire debacle and was obviously trying her best to look as calm and composed as possible. She then ended her silence by turning to her brother and saying, "Soichiro."

The boy turned to look at her, his jaw quivering as he gasped for breaths between sobs.

"We should go with him."

The boy swallowed hard, inhaled a shuddering breath, and said, " _Why?_ "

"Because we don't have a choice," she said.

"Why _not_?"

"He is here because he has proven himself as our father. He would not be here for any other reason," she explained. "And whether we go with him willingly or he takes us by force, we will have to go with him. Let's just go and then later we will think of a way of going to stay with Matsuda." She paused a cut a brief, but piercing, look at Near before returning to her brother, "I am sure he will do everything he can to get us back."

The boy appeared to be thinking over his sister's reasoning for a moment, and then he muttered, "..Is he really our dad?"

"Yes."

For a moment, the boy looked back and forth between his sister and Near, his lips still trembling, and then let out a loud, watery sigh followed by a sniffle. "O-Okay…" he conceded, looking defeated but apparently willing to go along with his sister. Clearly he was trusting of her above all others – which only made sense.

It took Near a moment to react after witnessing such an emotionally charged display, but when he did, he turned his attention back to the director, "I assume they are all packed and ready to go?"

The director gave a single nod and gestured towards two small suitcases. "Yes they are, Mr. River. I wish you and your children all the best." He then gave a polite bow and resumed his position from behind his desk.

Mr. River. Now that was an odd way for him to be addressed, even if it was technically correct. Thankfully, though, he would never have to be addressed that way again.

"Lidner," said Near, stepping aside to allow her entry into the room. "Please assist the children with their belongings and let us be on our way."

Before approaching the children, Lidner gave him a look, which prompted him to explain to the children, "Lidner is one of my assistants. I can assure you she is entirely trustworthy."

Neither of the children said anything, but instead watched Lidner with wary eyes as she approached them and offered to take their bags for them. They quietly allowed this, but the moment Lidner made a move to relieve the girl of her violin case, the girl reacted by holding the instrument against herself protectively and glaring at the woman. Lidner immediately apologized and backed off.

"Our transport is waiting just outside. Come along," Lidner instructed, leading the way with Near bringing up the rear.

Their odd little train led them past a group of children who were gathered in the hallway. Each of them stopped what they were doing to stare at the group as they marched by. Near noted that neither of his children acknowledged the attention from their peers, but in the same token, he also did not pay any mind to the mutters about his own appearance.

Once they reached the exit, Lidner arranged the bags in her arms and held the door open for Near and the children. They seemed surprised by the appearance of the limousine waiting there for them, at least enough for them to pause just outside the door and not take another step until they were beckoned by Lidner. She again opened the door for the three of them, and the two children hesitated, sharing an apprehensive look between themselves, before quietly climbing in.

Near hesitated himself just outside the limo, until Lidner said, "I can sit wherever you would like for me to sit, Near."

Near gave a curt nod and then climbed in after the children, where he waited in awkward silence for Lidner to finish loading the suitcases into the trunk. For the first time ever, he felt an immense sense of relief that she was able to read him well enough to know to join them in the back of the limo before informing Gevanni that they were ready to go.

Awkward was both the most accurate and the most understated way of describing the ride that took place afterwards. If ever there was a time Near wished he had something for his hands to do, now was the time. The girl seemed to be having the same issue, but at least she had the latches of her violin case to fiddle with, whereas Near had nothing but his hair. That would have to do, at least until they all got back to headquarters.

During this time, no one seemed to know where to look – except for Near, who was taking this time to observe a great deal of things about his children. Lidner and Near sat on one side of the seats, facing forward, while the children sat on the other, facing the rear of the vehicle. There was ample room in the back seat, and while Near and Lidner sat with an empty seat between them, the children chose to sit as closely to each other as possible. He supposed that was normal, with them being twins on top of being siblings, and on top of being in a strange situation with people who were essentially strangers to them.

He could hardly believe that this was happening. Just a few weeks ago, he was in the United States looking into "copycat" Kira cases, and now here he was, with his two previously unknown children sitting directly across from him. They were here, with him, going back to his new headquarters where they would be staying with him for at least the next few weeks while he and Roger made preparations to have them transferred. It didn't matter that their time with him was temporary – they, his children, were _here_ , sitting right across from him, and their existence was just as mysterious to him as the reasons why their mother had kept them a secret from him. Of course he understood the biological logistics of their existence, but there was still something.. surreal.. about the fact that the two children sitting across from him were his.

For whatever reason, his eyes seemed to want to examine the boy first. Well, not for "whatever" reason – he knew it was because the boy _did_ look an awful lot like his uncle… but that was only at first glance. Now that the boy was in such close proximity, Near noticed that there really was much more of himself in the boy's features than he initially saw. His facial structure was rounder; his skin tone was lighter; his hair was messier; his eyes were softer-… Well, maybe that last bit did not necessarily apply to Near with everything he had been told about the look in his own eyes, but the boy definitely did not have the same calculating look that his uncle had. While he was obviously in an aggrieved state for equally obvious reasons, Near could still tell that this boy was not the least bit like his uncle in nature, or even the least bit like Near himself. There was something more gentle and fragile about him, something which reminded him greatly of the boy's mother…

…Something which the girl apparently wanted to protect, because when Near turned his attention to her, he found that she was already looking back at him. Any hardness that was absent from the boy stood out in stark contrast in the girl. Her eyebrows were drawn together and her lips were pressed together firmly, creating a reproachful look that reminded him of someone else altogether.

"Didn't your mother ever teach you that it's rude to stare at people?" she reprimanded, gaining the astonished attention of both her brother and Lidner.

If Near himself felt at all jarred by being admonished by a ten-year-old, he did not let it show. Unlike being completely lost when it came to dealing with the emotions of others, confronting behavior such as this was actually something with which he _was_ well-equipped.

"No," he said calmly, as if her question or its implications had no effect on him, which it may as well not have for all the girl knew. Plus it was the plain and simple truth and he saw little point in elaborating any further than that.

She blinked at him a couple times, as if she had not been expecting such a frank answer, before setting her jaw again. "Well, it's rude," she sniffed and then turned her attention back to the window and the scenery that was passing by outside of it.

That did not stop Near from casting surreptitious glances in their direction, though. He continued watching them, their mannerisms, and their interactions with each other until the girl suddenly sat up straighter from her position by the window. She must have recognized their surroundings. She glanced back at Near, apparently no longer bothered by his staring, and then she nudged her brother, causing him to look up and peer over her shoulder so that he could also see outside the window.

"We're going _home_?" he inquired.

"..Did you buy our house?" the girl chimed in, appearing just as confused – and hopeful – as her brother.

"Not quite," he replied, although in all actuality he _did_ buy their house – he had done so simply to use it as a decoy residence for applying to claim the children and had no intentions of staying there. "We will be stopping by your former home to gather your belongings, and then we will head back to headquarters." He caught a glimpse of a look from Lidner, one that he interpreted as meaning he needed to elaborate, and added, "To what will now be your home."

Both of the children's expressions fell.

"..But I don't want a new house!" the boy moaned, and Near braced himself for another tantrum.

"It is not a house, per se," he explained, deciding that being direct and to the point would be best, "Although it does include all the comforts of home."

"..But why can't we stay at _our_ house?"

There were many reasons why they would not be staying at what was once the Yagami home, not the least of which was issues with security, but Near's simple answer was, "Because it no longer is your house."

For a moment, the boy looked like he was about to launch into another fit, but the girl assured him that it would be okay and he instead fell back into silence.

As the car was rolling to a stop in front of the house, Near said, "Lidner, I will need for you to please go with the children and assist them with gathering their belongings."

"What?" his female agent blurted before she could stop herself, "Near-.. Wouldn't it be appropriate for you to come with us?" She glanced at the twins, who were watching the adults expectantly. "I mean, the children-…"

"No, it would not," he stated, his expression as placid as ever, although inside he felt a strange, tightening sensation in his chest, the same he felt all those years ago when things had first ended between he and Sayu.

There was a torrent of unspoken, unexpressed thoughts and feelings and, for all his verbal eloquence, Near could not possibly begin to explain how he was feeling at that moment. Something inside of him labelled the feeling as "grief", but really he felt it ran much deeper than that. It wasn't just meeting his children for the first time; it wasn't just the dissonance he felt knowing that Sayu had kept them from him all this time; it wasn't just the horrible, ripping, painful knowledge that she was dead (murdered) and that now it was 100% that he would never see her, never speak to her, never hold her again; and it wasn't just the fact that her relationship with Matsuda had been more than just a friendship, making red hot anger boil inside of him until it threatened to burst forth and he felt he might not be able to stop himself from trying to kill the other man.

It was all of those things and more. He did not think he could handle seeing where she had moved on with her life, moved on without him. He did not think he could continue to keep himself composed were he to see the place where she had, until recently, lived with and raised their children; where she had sat down in the evenings to sort through her mail; where she had prepared meals for her family; where she had curled up on the sofa with their two strange, beautiful children and watched television dramas; where she had gone to sleep at night, possibly with other men after himself (fucking _Matsuda_ of all people!); where she and their children had lived their lives without him, while he had all but wasted himself away becoming...

Becoming what? L? The World's Greatest Detective? Or was he and his team the world's clean-up crew at this point? They hadn't solved a _real_ puzzle in who knew how long. The world just did not seem interested in that anymore - it only seemed interested in drawing up sides either for or against Kira, as it had since even before Kira's defeat, obsessing over whether he would return, and taking it upon themselves to punish people _they_ deemed evil. Over a decade after the bastard's death, and the world was still turned upside down because of him. The world had continued its steady decline over the years, and, in a way, had taken Near down with it. The world was a candle burning itself at both ends and he was loathe to admit that he had years ago grown bored and tired of running around and trying to put out all the fires.

Crime rates had gone back up, exponentially worse now that Kira's faulty ideals had drawn the most degradant crowd of cowards out of the woodwork, all claiming to have God's permission to murder anyone who did not fit into their own narrow idea of perfection. It was an eventuality that Near was sure that Yagami had not counted on, not that it mattered because that fucking bastard had started all this in the first place and now he was forever free of all responsibility for his actions. Not that Near saw any crime as much more than a puzzle to solve, but this was not what he had signed up for back at Wammy's when he strove to become the next L. Cleaning up after the games between the first L and Kira, and playing the role of janitor to a dying human ecosystem was not what he had wanted at all.

All the while, his first and only real friend, the only person he had ever opened himself up to, had moved on and made something with her life, had devoted herself to raising two children on her own. No, not on her own - she had had the help of others, others where it should have been him. This had all been stolen from him, and sitting there, sitting right across from him, was all that remained of her – of Sayu. Two physical reminders of her betrayal. He felt cheated and he felt suckered, like all the things he had ever wanted and worked for suddenly meant nothing and like all the things he never knew he had wanted were taken from him before he even had a chance to decide for himself.

So, go into her _house_ …? There was no way that was going to happen.

Resisting the urge to tug violently on the lock of hair he was currently twirling, he forcibly calmed his breathing and said, "Please make haste. The sooner we can get back to headquarters, the better. I will wait here with Gevanni."

Satisfied by the lack of questions, he finally tore his gaze away from the children, no longer able to look at the little boy who had his face, but his uncle's eyes - eyes that had once pierced him with hatred and had wanted him dead, but were now filled with tears; or the little girl who was almost a carbon copy of her mother, but had his own eyes - eyes which continued to glare at him in a way that left him feeling vulnerable and exposed.

As Lidner helped the children out of the car, he heard the whimper of his son's small voice, "He's so _mean_."

* * *

 **Just a quick note - I'm sorry if this is coming across as character bashing against Matsuda and/or Sayu. That is not what I am meaning to portray - I am wanting portray Near's thoughts, etc. on the situation. Anyway, hope you liked it, thank you again for reading, and as always feel free to ask questions. :3**


	10. Chapter 10

"Why do I always get chosen to do all this domestic crap?" Lidner muttered to herself as she waited in the kitchen while the children gathered their things from around the house. Currently she was inspecting a set of little tea kettle knick-knacks that were lined up on the windowsill in the kitchen, eternally happy in their blissful ignorance of paint and porcelain. Too bad they would probably end up in the garbage now – unless the children wanted to bring them along.

Well, she was probably chosen because she happened to be a woman, the assumption being that she had a predisposition towards handling children and therefore the children would be more receptive of her. She could all but hear Near's voice in her head saying, "That is precisely why I chose you, Lidner." With as much as she cared about her boss, she was all too aware of how much of a presumptuous little prick he could be at times, but she at least recognized that that stemmed from his superb observational skills and not from a desire to actually be a prick.

Lidner was also all too aware of the fact that she had zero experience with children, save for her experience with her rather childish boss, in which case she had a lot of experience - but so did Rester and Gevanni. This was something very different, at any rate. With Near, it was all about trying to read between the lines, assisting him in unfamiliar and uncomfortable social situations, and fetching him his toys upon request. In this situation, however, she was dealing with two children who were already going through enough with the murder of their mother, and were now having to deal with meeting their father for the first time, who could be notoriously difficult to communicate with.

This whole thing felt like a precarious handling of dangerous, reactive chemicals – something was bound to break down or blow up at some point. She knew she would have to bridge the gap somehow – at least, she felt compelled to, despite her discomfort with the situation. That could be the answer as to why Near had chosen her to help him with the children. After all, she had once upon a time been put in a similar role and had succeeded, to an extent. If Near had that much faith in her abilities, then she had no choice but to try.

Whatever Near's true reasoning for choosing her, Lidner could not help but feel completely out of place here. Not only was she not related to this family in any way, but terrible things had taken place in this house. The children's grandmother had died here, as she had learned from researching the Yagami family after learning about the children. A serial killer had been raised under this roof. And in this home, a young woman she had known – a young woman to whom her boss had once been quite attached – had been abducted. Well, technically not _in_ the home, but close enough for it to give off a haunted vibe all the same.

That was not the only thing that gave off such a vibe, she realized as she caught sight of an altar of some sort. Upon the altar sat an arrangement of photos; a trio of small, ornate pots; a couple candles; and an incense burner. This must be a shrine dedicated to honoring the deceased members of the Yagami family. She ignored the sick, heavy feeling in her gut and approached the altar, taking in the details of arrangement.

Her eyes grazed over two photos featuring an older man and an older woman, and went immediately to the third photo. She felt an undeniable chill run through her as she stared at the clean cut young man in the photo. He seemed to stare back at her, his copper-colored eyes meeting hers squarely, almost as if some part of him was still alive and still able to judge people with his stare alone – as if he had somehow transcended death and a part of his soul was inhabiting this photo.

What was even worse than that was what the photo itself represented. Here was a perfectly normal photo of what appeared to be a perfectly normal young man standing in front of his university, apparently proud of his accomplishments. Here was an unassuming young man who was on the cusp of adulthood and who had his whole bright future ahead of him. Here was a handsome young man who presented himself as someone to be respected and admired, while simultaneously harboring a darkness that only few had seen. Here was a young man who was responsible for the death of someone – a _kid,_ for Christ's sake! - she had deeply cared about. Here was a young man who could have also killed her, her boss, and her fellow SPK members had they been even _one tick_ off the mark. Here was a young man who could have been anything, could have used his genius to change the world in any number of more positive ways, but had instead chosen to play God and as a result had been gunned down in his megalomaniacal insanity. What a waste. What a terrible, horrific waste of not only his own life, but the lives of countless others.

This was awkward. It was awkward and distasteful and sickening and about a hundred other adjectives to see the photo of this deranged serial killer on display. Not only that, he was being honored and offered prayers, just as he had always wanted – only not as the god he had thought himself to be, but as the handful of ashes he now was. His surviving family must have been unaware of his misdeeds, otherwise Lidner doubted they would have included him in their family shrine like this. Of course, she knew that Sayu had learned the truth, but that knowledge clearly did not extend to the rest of the family, who all still believed that he died a hero.

She felt a sudden, unexpected stab of sympathy for the two children. They had no idea of the truth about either side of their family. It was all darkness and lies. She doubted they knew that their uncle had been a serial killer and that he was directly responsible for the birth of a new religion for people to kill each other over, much less that he was responsible for the death of the grandfather they would never meet. She doubted they even knew the full truth about their mother's relationship with their father, or even who their father _really_ was.

The children obviously did not have that high of an opinion of Near, although she was for some reason finding it hard to believe that it was because Sayu had painted him in a negative light. It most likely had to do with the fact that he had simply been absent from their lives up until now. Lidner could only imagine how they were feeling, to be claimed by their absentee father (however involuntary that absenteeism had been), who hadn't even bothered to properly introduce himself before whisking them away from everything they knew. This was going to be an uphill battle for all of them, that was for sure. Lidner could only hope that Near's decision was the right one and that things would work out for the best, not just for them but also for the children.

"Don't touch that!"

Lidner's thoughts were cut off by the harsh, abrasive command, forcing her to spin around. The girl was standing there, her hands by her sides, curled into fists and shaking.

"I was just looking – paying my respects," she corrected herself when she saw the flare of anger in the girl's eyes.

"Well, you're doing it wrong," she sneered and moved around Lidner, taking the time to carefully brush off some of the dust that had gathered on the altar in its neglected state.

"I apologize," Lidner said.

The girl ignored her apology and instead kneeled down, put her hands together, closed her eyes, and bowed her head slightly, leaving Lidner in the very awkward position of deciding whether or not she should follow suit. Would it be more disrespectful to offer a prayer or not to, she wondered? She was not at all religious, or even spiritual. Not to mention that it would also be terribly awkward to even pretend to honor someone who had tried to kill her. Something about the girl's body language beckoned her to follow suit, though, and after a moment longer of deliberation, she complied and copied the girl's actions.

After a few seconds of silence, the girl cracked open her eyes, glanced sidelong at the older woman, and huffed in apparent indignation. Had she made the wrong choice, then? Or was there perhaps no pleasing this girl, who had seemingly already decided not to like either herself or Near? Lidner supposed she could hardly blame the child, who probably felt just as out of place as Lidner herself felt.

Why the hell couldn't Near have chosen Gevanni for this? That man had more social moxie than the rest of them put together, for sure. He probably would have already had the kids warmed up to him by this time, the suave, smarmy bastard. Well, wishing she could have traded places with Gevanni was pointless at any rate, so she decided that maintaining sensitivity to the children's thoughts and feelings would be the best approach in this situation, awkward as it was for all of them.

"He better not be expecting me to call him 'Dad'."

Lidner turned her head towards the girl and said, "I don't think he knows what to expect from you any more than you know what to expect from him, Chihiro."

The girl's eyes narrowed at her in response.

"But I don't think that he is expecting for you to call him Dad."

"Good," said the girl with a derisive sniff, "Because it's not going to happen."

Taken aback, Lidner's instinctive reaction was to stand up for her boss, demand respect for him. But this girl was too young, too hurt, too confrontational to listen to such things at the moment, so she knew she had to stick with her idea of being sensitive towards the children. She smiled pleasantly and said, "I think he would prefer for you to call him whatever is more comfortable for you."

"And what would that be? Nate? Near? Gaijin?"

"Probably not that last one," she said easily, despite the girl's condescending behavior.

"What's his real name, then? Nate or Near? I've only known him for an hour and already I have heard him called by two different names. Why is that?"

"He probably would prefer for you to call him Near."

"What kind of name is _that_?"

"It's a nickname of sorts. It's what he prefers."

"But you just said that he would prefer for me to call him whatever makes _me_ most comfortable."

"Yes, but Near is what everyone else calls him."

"Then I will call him Nate," the girl declared.

Lidner pursed her lips, wishing she had phrased it all differently, but then she had not been expecting the girl to make so many counterpoints either. She decided to switch gears, "Are you calling him Nate because you want to, or is it because you are trying to be difficult? Why not give him a chance?"

"Why should I? I don't know him, and he doesn't know me. He just came in and took possession of us, like property, and hasn't said anything otherwise."

"That's why I am asking for you to give him a chance – neither of you know each other at this point."

The girl set her jaw and changed the subject, "Where has he even been this whole time?"

"I think that is something you should ask him."

"Why should I bother asking him when you speak for him?"

"Because that is not something I can speak for him about."

"It's because you don't know," said the girl, "You don't know any more than he does, but you are defending him anyway. Tell me – is that because you work for him or is it because you are in love with him?

Lidner almost let out a laugh at both the abruptness and the absurdity of the girl's question, but then she felt angry that the girl was judging Near based off something she had no knowledge of. The plain and simple answer was that, to no fault of his own, Near had not known about the children and so he had been living his life per what was normal for him. She had no way of knowing what Near's involvement in the children's lives would have otherwise been because that decision had been made for him and without his knowledge. Yes, she was angry on behalf of her boss and wanted to speak for him in that regard. She wanted to correct the girl's assessment, but Lidner knew it would not be a good idea to tell the child now that it was her own mother's fault her father had never been there for her before. What good would that do?

She furthermore believed that the girl was either trying to throw her off or piss her off only to protect herself, not out of spite. She had seen this type of behavior before from at least two others, one of which was the girl's own father. She could not allow the girl to get her worked up to the point where she would not be able to look at things objectively. That and there was something somewhat amusing about the fact that the girl was trying so hard to showcase what little she wanted to do with her father, and yet she was so much more like him than she realized.

Well, she had plenty of time to realize that, at least several weeks until Near got things arranged with Roger. Lidner wondered if Near planned on cluing the kids in on this detail, but it was at that time that the boy arrived on the scene, struggling down the stairs with what appeared to be a box full of electronics. She stood and took one last glance back at the girl, who had gone back to cleaning off the mantle, and moved quickly towards the stairs to help the boy.

"Here," she said as she reached out to take the box from him.

"I-I can do it…" he mumbled, but did not shake her off once she began to help him anyway.

"What is all this?" she ventured, hoping that making light conversation with him would help warm him up a bit. The girl may be stone cold and unreachable at the moment, but the boy seemed much more sensitive and receptive – or less combative, at the very least.

"My video games," he answered. Together the two of them set the box down and Lidner subconsciously raised an eyebrow at the haphazard packing job, which prompted a timid confession from the boy, "I'm not very good at packing..."

"I will take care of it," she offered, stooping to begin reordering the box, "Just keep bringing to me anything you want to take."

"What about our butsudan?" he quietly asked, eyeing his sister as she continued with her care of the altar.

"Butsu-… Oh," she said once she realized to what he was referring, "I'm afraid it is too big to bring with us." She grew alarmed by the sudden change in the boy's demeanor, which she had already learned as meaning he was about to have an outburst, so she hurriedly headed him off, "But why don't you put a sticky note on anything too large to take with us on this trip and we will come back to get it later?"

"Okay…" he agreed, albeit reluctantly.

"This is stupid," the girl interrupted, turning her attention back to the others. "Why can't we just stay here? Nate obviously bought the house."

Now, Lidner had been instructed by Near not to tell the children that he had bought their house, specifically so he could avoid having to explain why they would not be staying there (as well as a myriad of other questions), so she was understandably surprised by the girl's declaration.

All she could think to say was, "What makes you think he bought this house?"

"Well, aside from _your_ deflection…" the girl said with a small huff, "He said it is no longer our house, but it's not for sale and nothing has been auctioned off. All the police tape is gone. And he didn't deny that he bought it."

Oh lord, not another one, Lidner thought with an inward groan. Luckily for her, she did at least have some practice dealing with snitty kids who were too smart for their own good. Instead of voicing that thought, though, she said, "I'm afraid you are mistaken – Near has not purchased this house. It is true that he has a certain possession over it for the time being, but only long enough to clear everything out."

"And what about the rest of our stuff? I suppose it's just going to wind up in the garbage?"

"Anything you do not wish to keep will be thrown out, recycled, or donated, yes. Everything else, with the exception of what you are gathering now, will go into storage for the time being."

"Storage…"

"Yes." The girl gave her a hard look, which forced her to elaborate, "It's on-site storage, if that makes you feel any better."

The girl did not appear either convinced or comforted, but she did not argue any further about it either, much to Lidner's relief. She instead finally moved away from the altar – the butsudan – and briskly made her way back upstairs to retrieve more of her belongings. Her brother skittered along right after her, with one quick glance back at her before disappearing upstairs.

Uphill battle indeed.

Before going back to the boy's haphazardly packed box, Lidner pulled her mobile phone out of her pocket and sent off a text message to her boss. She let out a small puff in lieu of a chuckle as she imagined his response, and went back to work.


	11. Chapter 11

_Be careful what you say around your daughter – the apple did not fall far from the tree with that one._

Near stared at the message from his agent. Of course he was careful with what he said, regardless of who was around when he said it. What point was she trying to make? He slid out the keyboard on this phone and texted back.

 _Please elaborate._

But apparently there would be no elaboration, at least not at that time. He did not hear anything back from his agent until she had everything packed into the trunk and she was climbing back into the limo after the children. His gaze flickered to the girl and then back over to Lidner, expecting an explanation at that point, but what he received instead was a small head shake from the woman. That was disappointing, but he knew he would get an explanation from her eventually, so he let it go for now.

The rest of the drive was filled with nothing but silence, which Near was glad for because he was still trying to process the fact that his children were here with him. When they approached the old task force headquarters, the children again watched out the window in growing curiosity and apprehension. It wasn't until they were pulling around the building and approaching the underground parking garage that the children began to ask questions again.

"Why do you live in a skyscraper?" the boy asked, looking at him only briefly before looking away again.

"Because I own it."

"You own our house too, and yet we're not living _there_ ," the girl cut in, also giving him a brief, pointed look.

Annoyed by this, Near took his turn cutting a look of his own at Lidner, who pressed her lips together and looked away from him, apparently not intent on explaining how it was his daughter knew about his purchase of the Yagami house. He fully trusted that Lidner would not have gone against his wishes and told the children, but perhaps she had slipped up somehow. No, if she had, she would have already told him as much – Lidner was not one for trying to hide her mistakes, especially ones that impacted one of Near's orders or decisions.

But if Lidner had not told the girl…

Lidner's text then came back to mind and it suddenly all made sense. So, the girl had figured it out on her own, then. Interesting.

It really was not that big of a deal that the girl knew, despite Near's wishes to keep that tidbit of information from the children. He had really just been hoping to avoid having to answer questions about why he would buy their house and then not live there – the main reason being that their stay with him would not be permanent enough to justify making security modifications to the house, and Near had no intentions whatsoever of living in the former abode of both his deceased enemy and his now deceased ex-girlfriend. It would be much easier for him to house them all in his deceased predecessor's special-built headquarters until it was time for them to be moved to Wammy's.

At any rate, he doubted the girl would have any reason to bring up their living arrangements other than to argue with him about it. Seeing as she already had an idea of the matter, it did not make much sense for him to deny it, argue against it, or otherwise acknowledge it at all, so he said, "That's right – we're not."

His short answer earned him another glare from the girl, but they were soon enveloped by the darkness of the underground parking garage, thus bringing an end to the short discussion. Much to his appreciation, Near could see that Rester was already there, awaiting their arrival. He could also see that the commander had brought along a Slinky. Excellent – that was just what he needed right now.

Once the limo was parked, the commander approached the vehicle and opened the door for its passengers. Near observed the man's expression as he watched the odd little family file out of the car and noticed that his eyes lingered on the boy for just a fraction of a second longer than the girl, an unconscious action for sure. He could not say he was at all surprised by this, as the boy and his uncanny resemblance to his uncle had no doubt earned him a lot of long looks from the other adults in his life.

Still, the boy shied away from the large man and squeezed in closer to his sister again, who was looking quite a bit nervous herself despite her tough front during the drive.

"This is Commander Rester – another of my assistants," Near explained in an attempt to ease their wariness.

When his efforts appeared to have no effect, Rester handed over the Slinky to his boss – who immediately began to slink the coiled metal toy from one hand to the other – and quietly extended a hand to the children, both of whom only stood back and blinked at him.

"There's no need to be intimidated by him," Gevanni called from where he was helping Lidner with unloading the trunk. "He's really a gentle giant."

Rester grunted, "And that is Gevanni – he thinks he's funny," and pulled his hand back to himself once he realized the children were not going to accept. Gevanni snorted while Lidner rolled her eyes at both of them.

Nonplussed, the children looked back and forth between Near and each of his team members, but otherwise they remained silent.

"Gevanni and Lidner," Near said, now feeling significantly more relaxed by the soft purring sound of the Slinky's metal coils, "Would you two please show the children to their rooms? Rester and I have a few things we need to discuss. I expect you two to join us after getting the children settled in."

Gevanni and Lidner exchanged a look of uncertainty, but nonetheless instructed the children to follow them into the elevator. Near and Rester followed behind the group and together the lot of them stood in silence while the elevator made its steep climb all the way up to the 18th floor, where Near and Rester stepped off. Near paused in his actions with the Slinky in order to cast one last look back at his children as they stood, side-by-side, looking apprehensive as ever. Both of them were looking at him, as if they expected him to say or do something – what, exactly, Near could not figure out, so he looked away. As he was looking away, the girl's eyes narrowed at him by a fraction. The doors then closed and Near let out a quiet breath before he resumed rolling the toy from hand to hand.

"Near," said Rester as they began to traverse the corridor towards their command center. "Are you all right? Do you need to talk about-.. any of this?"

"That will not be necessary, Commander, thank you," Near replied, focusing intently on the metal coils while using his peripheral vision to navigate the hallway. He already knew what the other man was going to say, but he remained quiet and allowed him to speak his mind anyway.

"Are you sure you don't want to take the day off and go with them?"

"Quite sure," was his simple answer. "Let us return to the command center and you can brief me on any potential case updates we received this morning while myself and the others were away."

"Very well, sir," the Commander conceded and fell back into silence.

Getting back to work would be best for everyone, he was sure. There was nothing more he could do for the children right now, especially since Lidner and Gevanni would be going over everything with them, and a lot of his work really had been put off for long enough due to his discovery of the children. Besides, in the wake of so many questions that would go forever unanswered, Near was quite anxious to get back to working on puzzles he could solve.

* * *

Chihiro fumed as the doors closed. That was it? So, what, this oddball of man who is supposed to be her father just comes in, takes her and her brother away from Matsuda, and then has the audacity to leave them with his so-called "assistants" without any explanation or anything? What was the point of taking them in the first place, then? Why couldn't he have just stayed out of their lives, as he had this whole time? He had, after all, not become involved with them for one reason or another. Could that reason be that he was incapable of caring for children or just didn't care, as he had thus far demonstrated? Could that reason be that he was obviously still very much a child himself?

Good grief, the man was at least 30 years old and he still played with _toys_ , for God's sake.. She and Soichiro didn't even play with _toys_ anymore, and they were only 10 years old. True, her brother played a lot of video games, but so did a lot of other kids their age. Playing with toys at the age her father was was just… abnormal.

Then again, what was normal anymore? Was growing up without a father normal? Was watching your grandmother die normal? Was your mother being murdered normal? Chihiro had no concept of what normal actually was, but she knew it wasn't this-… this-… whatever _this_ was.

She wanted to feel gratitude towards her mother for having never told this man about them, but she also felt hung up on the question of how her mother had ever become involved with him to begin with. Her mother had been so _normal_ , and this man was just about as far from normal as one could get. How had she ever become involved with someone who wore pajamas out in public and looked like he only threw on some shoes to prevent his feet from freezing in the snow? How had she ever loved such a socially inept individual, one who required at least three people to tend to his needs and would rather live in a gigantic skyscraper than a house?

Speaking of abnormal things and skyscrapers, what was the deal with living in this skyscraper anyway? So he owned it – big deal. She had already figured out that he was well off – as if having no less than three "assistants" and owning his own limousine didn't say as much already. Also, as she had pointed out to him earlier, he owned her house as well, and yet they were not living there, so what was his point? She could only surmise that he meant to keep them in the dark as to why, or at the very least he thought they were a couple of dumb kids who wouldn't know any better or ask any questions either way. Well, she would show him…

This whole thing just felt like a some kind of farcical arrangement. It didn't feel genuine and some part of her wanted to believe it also was not permanent, despite all the elaborate security measures that were being taken. Everything here was private, kept secret – including them, it seemed, if they were to be locked away in a tower, like straight out of some fairy tale. She had paid close attention while in the elevator and noticed that there weren't any buttons for accessing the first 13 floors. They hadn't even been able to access this elevator in the first place until the large man – Rester – placed his phone in a port and provided a lengthy access code. That meant that this was a private elevator and she doubted that any other elevators that the public could access would be able to reach the top 10 floors.

Private elevators, dubious-looking limousines, taciturn assistants, not to mention how Nate was going by two different names… What was he, some kind of secret agent or something? Was that what his bizarre appearance and behavior was all about? No, Chihiro was sure that it was simply who he was, not an elaborate ruse. Everyone seemed so casual about his social nuances, it had to be real.

Which made her thoughts circle right back around to how her mother had ever become involved with this man and why he felt now of all times was good to show up out of the blue and steal them away.

All these thoughts left Chihiro feeling more bitter than ever. She choked down the bitterness enough to allow herself to go along with whatever stupid charade this was they were being forced to take part in.

"Gevanni," said Lidner as the elevator again came to a stop and the doors slid open. "Will you take Soichiro to his floor? I will take Chihiro to hers."

"Sure thing," agreed Gevanni, who then stooped to pick up the heavy load he had set down during the elevator ride. "Come on, kid. I'll show you around your floor and where your room is."

"Wait, Soichiro and I get different _floors_?" Chihiro blurted.

"Yes," answered Lidner.

"...But I don't want my own room! Or floor! Why can't Chihiro and I stay together?" Soichiro protested.

"What's the point of having a whole floor to ourselves?" Chihiro queried, equally frustrated by the fact that they were, yet again, being separated. "We're only 10 years old."

"Technically speaking," said Lidner, "Neither of you has the floors to yourselves as we can all access them at any time."

"In that case, what difference does it make on which floor we stay? Can't we stay in a room - or at least on a floor - together?"

Her brother even threw in one of his pleases, which usually worked on any unsuspecting adult. Soichiro had earned for them many spoils simply by using that word in a way that only he knew how.

She watched as the two adults exchanged another one of those uncertain looks, one that said they had no answer because they could not argue with her. The blonde woman pressed her lips firmly together before opening her mouth to say something, but she was beaten to the punch by the dark-haired man. "I don't see what the problem is with that," he said with a look at his colleague. "She has a point."

Chihiro felt relief flood through her. _Finally_ , someone was listening to her.

"Yes, but Near's instructions…"

"I'm sure Near only set things up that way because he figured they would want some space after being at that crowded orphanage." Lidner raised an eyebrow at the man, questioning his logic. He continued, "But if they want to stay together, then I'm sure Near won't mind that either."

"All right," Lidner sighed, finally picking up Chihiro's stuff and stepping off the elevator.

Feeling a little bit better, Chihiro followed the adults down the hallway, Soichiro close by her side. Maybe he knew or maybe he didn't, but Chihiro relied on him for comfort just as much as he relied on her. Her mother used to think that she was the braver of the pair, but Chihiro had never revealed that she only felt brave because her brother was with her. She couldn't imagine having to go through this – _any_ of this – without him.

After passing several doors, the group entered one of the rooms, the largest single room Chihiro had ever seen. She was pretty sure this suite was even larger than the whole downstairs area of her house. This building was supposed to be a hotel, but this looked like an entire apartment. There was even an adjoining dining room and kitchen area, in addition to the large bedroom and living room. The windows in the rooms were huge, spanning most of the length from ceiling to floor and allowing in so much light, she doubted they would ever need to use the indoor lighting at any point during the day.

She caught a glimpse of the landscape outside the window, the gray horizon punctuated by skyscraper after skyscraper, and suddenly felt light-headed. They were so high up…

She felt doubly glad for being able to stay with her brother now – the sheer amount of open space intimidated her more than she would readily admit. What on earth could she and Soichiro possibly need this much room for? She glanced over at her brother and noticed that his eyes were darting here and there as well, taking in everything and appearing to be just as amazed by their surroundings.

"I've been instructed by your father to go over some ground rules with you two," said Lidner, "But first I think we should see about getting you something to eat. There's a restaurant on the ground floor that we can order from at any time, day or night. Either Gevanni or myself, or Rester if neither of us is available, will retrieve your orders and have them brought to you. I have placed a menu on the dining room table, if you'll want to take a look."

"We aren't hungry," said Chihiro after taking another glance at her brother, who appeared just as disinterested in the offer of food.

Still, the woman shifted her gaze from Chihiro to her brother, who quietly shook his head.

"Very well, then I'll go over the rules with you now," said Lidner.

Neither Chihiro nor her brother said anything, only looked to the woman to explain these rules.

Obliged, the woman explained, "Between the hours of 11:00 PM and 7:00 AM, access to and from floors 14 through 23 will be made inaccessible to anyone without the proper clearance. That means that without one of us - either Gevanni, Rester, your father, or myself - you will be unable to leave or enter this area of the building during those times."

When neither Chihiro nor her brother said anything, Lidner continued, "Otherwise, when leaving the building for school, and returning after school, to get into the private elevator, you will need an access code. The codes will be sent to you by phone-" she paused briefly to receive a pair of mobile phones from Gevanni, who was waiting by patiently, and then handed over the phones to the two astonished children, "-once you place your phone on the access pad. The code alone will not work on the elevator – you must have your phone with you. Also, the codes will expire daily. You will be expected to leave and return at approximately the same times every day. There will be no deviation from this schedule."

"What is all this for?" Chihiro interrupted, turning over the phone and examining it. "To keep us from running away?"

"If that is how you want to look at it," the woman quipped before continuing right along without missing a beat, "Other than that, the only other rules are not to enter our command center when we are conducting business, or while none of us is present, and to please not be destructive of your surroundings."

"So what happens if we don't follow these rules?" inquired Chihiro, not even bothering to sound innocent.

"You won't get thrown out, if that's what you are hoping for," Lidner said, earning another sour look from Chihiro.

Of course they wouldn't get thrown out. From everything Chihiro had inferred, Nate had already decided that they were his property, so there was literally nothing they could do that would cause him to throw them out. The other side of that was that she could do whatever she wanted and would not be thrown out – including breaking the rules. She could work with that.

"Are there any other questions?" Lidner prompted, receiving no response other than a pair of shaking heads. "In that case, Gevanni and I will go and retrieve the rest of your belongings, and then we will have to leave for several hours. Please feel free to use your phones to text or call us at any time if you need anything."

Chihiro let out a tiny scoff. What they _needed_ was to get out of this place, but it seemed that was not going to happen, at least for the time being. As soon as the two adults left the room, Chihiro flipped her phone open and entered the passcode Gevanni had left with it. She went through all the options on the phone and discovered that there was no way of looking up the number that belonged to this phone. She also learned that there were five names preprogrammed alphabetically into her contact list – Soichiro, along with Gavin, Laura, Nick, and Richard, obviously pseudonyms for Nate and his lackeys that would be easy enough for herself and her brother to remember - but when she tried to pull up the individual contacts, no phone numbers showed up.

As she was going through all the settings and options, her brother asked, "What are you doing?" He also had his phone open and was looking through everything, although not as studiously as Chihiro herself was.

"Here, call my phone. It looks like they have speed dials set up," she said and waited while Soichiro did as she asked.

"Who are Gavin, Laura, Nick, and Richard?"

"Pseudonyms for Gevanni, Lidner, Nate, and Rester."

"Oh, okay," he said and pushed a few buttons, "That's really weird. Why are they being so secretive about everything? Is our dad a secret government spy or something?"

Chihiro shrugged, because at this point she really did not know. It also irked her that he had referred to their father as their "dad", because in her mind, there was a huge difference, and Nate was _not_ their dad – Matsuda was.

Once her phone began to go off, she peered at the screen and was disappointed to see that it was registering her brother's phone as one with a private number. She had been expecting as much, but it was still disappointing.

Oh well. The phone did still at least have one other use. As soon as she ended the call between her phone and her brother's, she flipped it back open and began putting in an actual phone number.

Soichiro peered over at her and said, "What are you doing now?"

"Calling Matsuda."


	12. Chapter 12

**Hi, everybody. I hope none of you thinks this story is abandoned, because it is not - I just have a lot of things going on right now that are preventing me from writing/posting regularly. And I am sorry, I don't think this chapter is my best quality of work, but I hope it will suffice for now. Thank you for your patience with this update, and I will post again as often as I can. :)**

* * *

Hearing that his application for adoption had been rejected a second time was both shocking and infuriating. Not that it had been outright rejected the first time, but it was currently the same thing in Matsuda's mind. There was only one reasonable explanation for this and that was that Near had actually done the one thing Matsuda had not expected him to do – proven paternity to the children.

He must have been stupid to think that Near would not have found out about the kids. Of course he would have found out about them - they were right there in Sayu's case file. Near may an insufferable prick, but he was not an idiot by any means. It was never a matter of whether or not Near would find out, it was only a matter of when he would. The idea that Near would be even remotely interested in the children was so absurd, it had never even crossed Matsuda's mind that he would be.

But of course, Near had found out, he had been interested, and now that sneaky bastard had taken the children away. And Matsuda had been so close to adopting them; he was sure of it. So close to pulling together the remains of their family. And damn it, it _was_ his family. _His_ family, not Near's. What did _Near_ , the emotionally vacant traveling detective, know about family? What did Near know about the children besides the fact that they were biologically his? He, Matsuda, was the one who had practically helped raise the kids, had been the only paternal influence in their lives, had loved them so much that they may as well have been his. Near didn't care about the kids - this was all just some game to him, a game because Matsuda had dared to challenge him. He knew how much Near, like both of his predecessors, hated to lose, so of course he would have never allowed himself to lose to Matsuda, even if it meant giving up his children for their own best interests.

And _of course_ being with Matsuda was in their best interests. What could Near possibly do with two children who had just lost their mother? Was he planning on retiring from his position as L in order to raise them himself? If not, then what exactly did he expect to gain from having the children in his possession? Near had to be the least fit guy for fatherhood that Matsuda could think of - except for maybe some of the criminals he had put behind bars over the years. Even Sayu had known that, hence why she had opted to keep Near and the children out of each other's lives.

No, Matsuda seriously doubted that Near would allow the children to stay with him permanently. It would hamper his ability to travel around the world and solve cases in absolute secrecy, which to him was paramount. Matsuda was sure that Near was planning on sending the children away to that Wammy's place at the first available opportunity, which could be any time within the next few weeks. And then Matsuda... he was sure that he would never see the children again after that. They would grow up without him, scared and alone in a country 5,700 miles away, among other children who were just as damaged by life's circumstances as they were. There was no telling what kind of things could happen... to be among a bunch of highly intellectual, highly competitive peers, without Matsuda there to help them and watch over them and protect them... It was a nightmare waiting to happen.

It was a nightmare that _was_ happening. Matsuda had tried hard to intervene in any way he could - he had called the orphanage a number of times, cursed out some of the staff, even posted to them a few letters of disgust, threatening legal action. He had even actually gone through the trouble of sitting through a consultation with his lawyer who pretty much told him that he would love to take his money, but this would be a losing battle for both of them. There was absolutely no recourse for him where gaining guardianship of the children was concerned. It didn't matter that Matsuda had been with the children practically since their birth. Blood trumped paper, the children were with their "rightful" legal guardian, and there was nothing he could ever do to get the children back.

Yes, he was pretty sure he would never see them again, or even get to speak to them. He and Near were pretty much enemies now – why would he ever allow the children to contact him? Matsuda had not felt this depressed since.. well, since ever. As if dragging himself into work was not hard enough with everything that had happened with Sayu (and the fact that her case was now at a complete dead end), having the children taken right out from under him just about left him completely desolate and paralyzed. The NPA was also becoming overwhelmed as the number of copycat Kira cases continued to rise, and although they were sure that no supernatural notebooks were involved, it still took all of Matsuda's effort to give even half a damn.

In fact, he could not give half a damn even now, while a meeting about those very copycat Kira cases was going on around him. They were once again bringing up the fact that many of these crimes were being committed by members of this so-called Church of Kira; and, once again, simultaneously discussing how none of these crimes could be specifically linked to the church itself.

Matsuda was sitting there quietly, thinking about how all of this was some big messed-up cycle, stuck on repeat, and that they would never see the end to it, when his phone went off in his pocket. Glancing at it, he did not think much of it at first, at least not until he saw the number that popped up on the display. What the heck kind of number consisted entirely of zeros? Was it some kind of spam call?

Well, he couldn't be too worried about it right now, at any rate, being in the middle of a meeting and all. If it was important, whoever it was would leave him a message, which he would check later. He went to put the phone back into his pocket when it went off again, again showing the same number. Whoever it was sure was persistent, he thought as he again sent it to voicemail. But when the phone went off for a third time, _again_ from the same strange number, Matsuda frowned. He then cleared his throat and raised his hand slightly, interrupting the chief.

"What is it, Matsuda?" Aizawa grumbled, clearly miffed by the interruption.

"It's, uh.. I'm getting a call."

"Can't it wait? If you haven't noticed, we are in the middle of a meeting."

"I don't know," said Matsuda, ignoring the chief's disgruntled attitude, "They keep calling back. It must be important."

Aizawa pressed his lips together and looked like he was about to protest further, but then Matsuda was already getting out of his chair, intent on checking his phone regardless of what his boss had to say.

Finally, Aizawa said, "I want you back in here in five minutes, then."

"Thanks, Chief," said Matsuda and excused himself, ignoring all the rolled eyes from his comrades.

Once outside of the office, he gently closed the door behind himself and flipped open his phone, which had already started ringing for a fourth time. Putting it to his ear, he said, "..Hello?"

"Uncle Matsuda, it's Chihiro."

Stunned, he nearly dropped his phone, but he managed to recover and stood up, his back ramrod straight. "Chihiro! Are you-.. Is everything-... Is Soichiro-...?"

"I'm here too!" came the voice of the boy, as clearly as his sister's. They must be on speakerphone, he thought. "Uncle Matsuda, what's going on?"

"I was about to ask you the same thing, kiddo," he said, feeling his heart hammering in his chest from both worry and relief at the same time. "Are you two okay? Where are you? Tell me what's happening."

"We're okay for now," said Chihiro, but Matsuda could hear a tremor in her voice, as if she was about to get upset but was trying not to, "We're at some huge building, supposedly a hotel, but the top ten floors are private. They just dropped us off in our room and left us here."

Matsuda himself was shaking. No way... Did that bastard really take the kids _there_ of all places...? And did he really leave the kids _alone_ , given everything they were going through? That guy really had a lot of nerve-..

"Uncle Matsuda," Soichiro butted in, "Is he really our dad?"

Matsuda closed his eyes and felt a disheartening shudder run through him, his eyes growing warm even as the moisture in his mouth dried up. He wanted to tell them that _no_ , Near was _not_ their father, that he - _Matsuda_ \- was their father. But of course they already knew the truth of the matter, as they had known even before this whole mess. The fact that they were asking now only meant that they were just as stunned and confused by the situation as he was.

"Yes he is, pal," he forced himself to say, rubbing his temples with the thumb and middle finger of his free hand while the other gripped his phone even tighter in its grasp.

"But why did he take us instead of you?"

"How did he find out about us?"

"Why didn't he come get us before?"

"Do you know him?"

Matsuda opened his mouth to answer their barrage of questions and then clamped it shut. It dawned on him how long it had been since he had really spoken to the children and how they knew nothing of the phone he had found at their mother's, his work on the phone, the custody battle between himself and their father, or any of that. How could he explain any of that without revealing why they were trying to call Near in the first place? That would practically reveal that their mother's case was at a standstill.

Well, he supposed it would probably be okay to let the kids know that their father had worked with the NPA on cases in the past and that they were calling him for his opinion on things. They didn't have to know all the little details, including that their father was L himself. He was admittedly reluctant to share any of this with the children, not just because of his own personal feelings, but because he knew it would probably spark their curiosity and lead into more questions. But he had promised them from the very beginning that he would keep them updated with what was going on with their mother's case. It was his responsibility as much as the kids themselves were, regardless of whoever they were living with.

That said, he figured he should just start from the top.

"It's, um.. It's about your moth-..."

"Is that really something you should be discussing with the children, Matsuda?"

Matsuda was so surprised by the sound of a voice that was neither Chihiro's nor Soichiro's that he almost dropped his phone again.

"Who is that?" the children inquired.

"What the-.. _Near_?! What are you-...?!"

"It should be obvious to you - I have access to this line."

Outraged by the sheer invasion of privacy, Matsuda fumed, "..You are a piece of work, you know that?! Never mind the fact that you are being completely paranoid, and let's not even go into all the stunts you have pulled recently - _of course_ the kids have the right to know about their mother's case! And if you don't tell them, then I will!"

"Then I'm afraid this call is over. Farewell."

His eyes wide, he heard the kids call out to him in unison. He tried to tell them not to worry, that everything would be okay, but his words were cut short as the call ended abruptly.

"Son of a bitch!" he growled, clenching his phone tightly in his hand.

Next thing he knew, there was a loud crack and a sensation of flaming white heat jolting up his arm. This was followed by an anguished cry that Matsuda all at once realized was coming from him. At first, he didn't realize what was going on, but then he saw the slight dent in the door frame of the conference room. Moments later, said door was flying open and Aizawa was appearing in the doorway, frowning at him.

"Matsuda, what the _hell_ is going on out here?!"

Holding back a pained moan, he muttered, "Nothing, I'm fine," although nothing was fine. He could feel the sharp sting of tears in his eyes, betraying him along with the throbbing fist he was cradling against his stomach, but he could not find any words to describe what had just happened, either during the call with the kids or directly afterwards. Without any further response, he ambled off in the opposite direction of the conference room and his scowling boss.

"Where do you think you are going?" Aizawa groused impatiently.

Matsuda bit his lip as he groaned back, "To get some ice."

* * *

"Near, was that really necessary?"

Near watched the pacing movements of Lidner's legs (clad in a professional black pant, as per usual) through his extensive latticework of cards, her impatient strides creating a sort of strobing effect through the gaps between them. He sighed. "Case information should always remain confidential, regardless of which case it is and who is involved, Lidner - you know that," was his simple reply. And of course the idea was simple - why was everyone having such a difficult time understanding this as of late?

"You know," she went on, her voice growing more stern by the moment, "Presenting yourself as a villain to the children isn't really going to help anything."

"I'm not presenting myself as anything," he cut in with a hint of irritability. He glanced at his laptop monitor and observed as the children tried to call up Matsuda again. Of course, their efforts would end in failure, as Near had been left with no choice but to block the children from being able to call him again. He should have just prevented it from the start - in fact, he wasn't exactly sure why he had allowed it at all. At any rate, any further communications with Matsuda at this point posed too much of a risk, and Near was already carrying enough risks as it was, having exposed his identity to gain custody of the children and all.

Lidner suddenly paused and sent him a disapproving look of some kind. He had a feeling that it was about the cameras he had instructed his team to set up in the children's rooms, and not a moment later he was proved correct.

"And having cameras put in their rooms..?" came Lidner's voice again from behind him as she presumably watched the monitors alongside him - well, as close as she could get to him from the other side of his wall of cards, anyway.

"It is a necessary precaution."

"That's not how you go about earning their trust."

"It's not about earning anybody's trust and they need not know about the cameras either way."

After that, Lidner fell back into silence, which Near was grateful for, because he was growing quite bored of listening to her reprimands. Her counterpoints and questions against his motives and decisions sometimes were actually good things as they helped provide him with some insight he might have otherwise not considered - but in this case, her contentions were both unfounded and unwarranted. How she, or anyone else, felt about it was not important. What was important was keeping a close eye, and ear, on the children over the next few weeks until he could have them sent away to the safety of Wammy's. What was equally important was being able to move ahead with his cases as seamlessly as possible. Plain and simple, he had himself, his team, his operation, and now two children to conceal from the world, and so any and all available resources would need to be utilized.

He could tell that she had much more to say on the subject, but she was at least wise enough to end the debate while it was still in its trivial stage. Relieved by her cease-fire, Near went right back to watching the children on his laptop. He found that he was oddly (admittedly) fascinated by watching them in this manner. The girl and the boy both had such different mannerisms - the girl with her almost frantic efforts of trying to call up Matsuda again, first on her phone and then on her brother's, and her fruitless search for the landline phone that had been removed during his team's preparation of the rooms; and the boy with his calm, albeit distressed, silence as he watched his sister's futile efforts. Perhaps that was why he was so interested in them. They were so interesting, so different from each other, so different from-..

So different from the (admittedly) redundant cases of inferior copycat Kiras he had been cleaning up for the past decade.

In the meantime, Commander Rester must have been encouraged by the desisted bickering, because Near could hear his approaching heavy footsteps and the shuffling of papers. Just as the Commander was arriving at his side to resume discussing their latest case, Near held up a hand to stop him. He could sense both of his agents crowding in behind him (on the other side of his wall, of course), with Gevanni being absent as he was presumably still retrieving the rest of the children's belongings from the limo. All three of them became transfixed by the drama unfolding on the monitor before them.

The girl had just made a move as if to throw her phone at the window, which Near knew would bear no damage. If it could withstand bullets, it could withstand the impact of a mobile phone. She then seemed to think better of her actions and instead threw the phone down onto the bed, where it bounced gaily before resting upon the comforter. Near watched as she stood restlessly by the bed, as if she could not decide what she wanted to do. She was then suddenly marching towards the door, wrenching it open, and setting out into the hallway and towards the elevator. The boy scrambled after her, his mouth opening and closing in silence due to the volume on his laptop being turned down. Still, the message was clear - the boy was wanting to know what his sister was doing and where she was going, a sentiment that was apparently shared by his agents.

"Are they coming _here_?" said Rester, sounding both surprised and concerned.

"That appears to be the case," Near stated, taking his eyes off the cameras briefly to pull a box of Tarot cards closer. He had a feeling that he would very soon be needing something to keep his hands occupied, and merely slinking a Slinky around was not going to be enough. Besides, the cards tended to help him focus more than anything else.

"I'll go stop them," sighed Lidner. She turned to leave the room, but stopped when Near spoke.

"Let them come," he said calmly.

"Near.. I don't think that's such a good idea," Lidner expressed, but her concern went unacknowledged as Near watched in fascination while the girl navigated the hallways, seeming to know on instinct where their command center was, with her brother trailing after her.

As the children approached his location, Near switched the cameras on his laptop to show an outside part of the building and picked up where he left off with his card towers. He had an idea of what to expect once they arrived, and he had already begun the process of fortifying himself against whatever vitriol they were going to throw at him. Still, he did feel the slightest bit uncomfortable when the girl began to rage at him the moment she set foot into the room.

"Who the _hell_... Where are you?!" she spat upon coming face to face with Near's sprawling fortress, no doubt a daunting image to anyone who had never laid eyes on it before. She did not wait for an answer - instead, she circled around on the perimeter until she spotted him. Once she did, she resumed her tirade, "Who the hell do you think you are?!"

Near raised his head and cast her a questioning look, beckoning her to elaborate without saying as much.

Something about this action enraged her further, perhaps because even while standing on her toes, she could not fully peer over the top of the cards, and so she had to settle with glaring at him through the gaps. Her voice rose in volume quite a bit, "You had no right to come and take us away from Matsuda!"

As he opened his mouth to respond, he dropped his gaze back to what he was doing with the cards, carefully angling two of them together so that they balanced and began to form a platform on top of which other cards would be placed. "As your father, it was indeed my right," he replied matter-of-factly, not even bothering to argue the point that he could not have possibly taken them _away_ from Matsuda when they were never his (neither genetically nor legally) to begin with.

"Don't say that!"

Again, he blinked at her as if he did not understand what point she was trying to make. And maybe some part of him actually _didn't_ understand, thus rendering the owlish look not entirely calculated on his part. He could understand a great many things, most of them things relating to people without actually being involved with people, including emotions. Yes, he did understand human emotions - and he could certainly understand why his children were feeling scared and angry - but what he was lacking was the knowledge of how to respond to many of these emotions. He did not have to psychoanalyzed by anyone to know that for himself, although he often found it was much easier to ignore these kinds of things when they were directed at him than to confront them. In the end, his reaction was neither important nor beneficial. It did nothing to change the situation or the other person's feelings while in the moment. Later, that person would be welcome to present their standpoint to him in a calmer, more logical manner and Near felt that this would yield better communication - not that the other person usually did approach him later on, but he was always open, either way.

Either way... in this case, he figured his curious lack of response would draw an explanation out of her, and so it did.

"Don't say that you are our father, as if you actually understand what that means! As if it means _anything_! As if it's _normal!_ NONE of this is _normal_!" she went on, and at this point, Near could see that she was shaking with anger. He also noted that although her misty gray eyes were bright and fierce, they were glazed over, reflecting the luminous, silvery light of the closed circuit televisions around the room in a way that indicated she was holding back tears.

Near had no response to her outburst, although he did understand what she was saying - at least on a level that he could relate to. How could any of this be normal for any of them? Normal for everyone would have been before Sayu's death ( _murder_ ), with the children growing up with their mother and prospective step-father while Near remained ignorant to it all. Ignorance, he supposed, was what would have been normal to them all. Ignorance was normal for most people. But seeing as that veil had been ripped away, revealing the truth, normal was no longer an option. It would never again be an option, and so they would all have to reform themselves around this new idea of normal, even Near himself, with as uncomfortable as he would forever be with the idea.

"You take us away from the only person who could ever _really_ be our father, and then you cut us off from him, and now you sit there and-... and play with your cards or whatever, like it doesn't matter! Like WE don't matter!"

Of course it mattered. Of course _they_ mattered. Why else would he have gone through all this trouble to obtain them? To have them sent somewhere safe? To ensure their futures?

"Well, if we don't matter to you, then why did you take us away from Matsuda to begin with?!" There was a short pause in which the girl let out a heated exhale. "Are you listening to me?"

Her sharp tone sliced through his spiderweb of thoughts. Of course he was listening to her - it wasn't like he had much choice at the moment, not with the way she was yelling. Also, he had essentially invited the children into his room so that he _could_ listen to them - otherwise, he would have allowed his agents to intercept them. Besides, just because he wasn't looking at her, didn't mean-..

Near flinched - he actually _flinched_ , which was not something he did often, if at all - when several of his cards suddenly went flying right out from under his steady hands. This triggered the collapse of the rest of them and all their interconnecting structures into a great, flat heap around him, fully exposing him to the rest of the room. With involuntary speed, his gaze snapped back up to meet that of his daughter's, somehow - amazingly _somehow_ \- taken aback by her explosive action. Was his mouth actually hanging open? Surely it wasn't, although he felt as though it was.

"That's enough," Lidner cut in, apparently no longer willing to stand by while someone - child or not - berated her boss. "Both of you, back to your room."

The girl sneered at him without saying another word, her sneer seeming to speak for her. _That's what you get_ , it seemed to say. Some part of him wanted to express annoyance at what she had done, but he was still staring in a rare case of what felt an awful lot like shock at the demolished state of his card palace. Nearly two weeks worth of work ruined, all at the hands - or well-aimed foot, rather - of the child he had quite literally risked his life and operation to save. Two weeks of work... What had she-...? _Why_ had she-...?

He had known that taking in the children might be challenging, but he had not expected any sort of antagonistic behavior from either of them. Up until that moment, they had been either defensive or withdrawn. He could handle that quite easily and had expected them to carry on as such.

How wrong he had been.

In that moment, no longer protected by his walls of cards and with the girl still glaring at him with eyes cut from steel he felt stripped bare and judged. Judged for something that had not been his fault. _Again_ judged for something that was not his fault. Judged for something the girl did not fully understand. Judged for something _he_ did not fully understand. Judged for something neither of them had any knowledge of - would _ever_ have any knowledge of because Sayu was dead, she was dead and all of her secrets had died with her.

The moment passed. The girl turned away and began marching back towards the door from whence she came, flipping her ( _Sayu's_ ) long, brown hair over her shoulder as she did so. The boy lingered in the doorway, looking at him in a mixture of fear, anxiety, and... sympathy? He pressed his lips into a thin, sad line and opened his mouth to say something-.. then closed his mouth again and made haste after his sister. As he did, Near heard from somewhere in the deepest, darkest part of his mind, the sound of laughter.


	13. Chapter 13

**Hi gang - trying to wrap up things for the first day with Near and his kids with this chapter, hoping it doesn't come across as too abrupt. There are some other things I am wanting to get to in this part of the series and I feel like maybe I lingered too much on this bit. :P Hope you enjoy!**

* * *

A lot happened during the first night the children were with Near - Matsuda tried to break in, the kids tried to sneak out, and Near and his team were interrupted about a dozen times by curious and sometimes destructive behavior from the twins in between such attempts.

Approximately six hours after the ruin of his card fortress, Near caught sight on his monitors of a man approaching the underground parking garage which he and his team used to enter and exit the building. The identity of this man was by no means a mystery to Near, especially not after he walked right up to the stand-alone entry pad and swiped something across it. His reasons for being there were also not a mystery, although his entry was still not permitted, even though his badge had allowed him entry in the past. Frustrated, the man swiped the badge over and over until he finally gave up and began throttling the piece of equipment instead. Under normal circumstances, Near would have sent one his team down to address the situation. But under current circumstances, and while feeling particularly spiteful, he merely sat back and watched as the man's frustration became increasingly violent, to the point where he began kicking the reinforced garage door and shouting and making obscene gestures at the clearly visible security camera. After a couple minutes of this rowdy activity, a pair of security guards employed by the downstairs hotel showed up and invited the man to leave. The man declined their invitation by explaining that he was with the police too and had a right to be there. This explanation proved to be insufficient, but at least the guards were kind enough to escort the man off the premises and presumably send him on his not-so-jolly way. Near smirked and resumed with both his reconstruction of his cards and his discussion with his team about the steep increase in suicides and murders in Japan over the last decade.

Roughly five hours after that, at eleven o'clock on the dot on the evening of December 28, 2026, Near became aware that both of his children had just left their room. They were heading for the elevator again, and when they both climbed in, Near at first thought they were both coming to "see" him again. The quotations presented themselves in Near's mind as he recalled their previous "encounter" - again, his mind using quotations to euphemize the otherwise disastrous occasion. This uncomfortable suspicion instantly changed over to curiosity and then realization when the girl instead tried to use her phone and access code to leave their reserved space of ten floors. The elevator told them _no_ by way of a polite chime. Immediately following this attempt, each of the adults received a notice on their respective phone or laptop that reiterated what Near had just witnessed.

Unsurprisingly, this got the attention of each of his team members, which prompted a peeved response from his female agent, "I thought we explained to them that they would not be able to leave these floors between 11 PM and 7 AM."

She then looked over to Gevanni, who confirmed this with a crooked, wry upward tilt of his lips and a useless, nonplussed shrug. "Kids," he said with a small, humorless puff of air.

"They're testing to see if you lied," Near interjected softly, taking his eyes off the screen for the moment so as to continue rebuilding his fort.

"Why would they think we lied?" blinked Gevanni, "These measures are for their own safety as much as it is for ours."

"They must feel that we are untrustworthy," said Rester.

"Not that we have done anything to earn their trust," Lidner intoned darkly, insinuating the events from earlier.

Near could not deny that he understood all of his team's points. They had all been very secretive about everything, not the least of which was giving the children strict rules about how to enter and exit the building (for security reasons). And their only call to the outside world (so far) had been commandeered and subsequently terminated (also for security reasons). Also, add to the fact that the girl had already latched onto at least one of his lies (well, not a lie so much as the omission of truthful details, really) and so far had not let go.. But still, it was all-..

"Irrelevant," said Near, although in reality, he did find it interesting that they were already pushing whatever boundaries they could - interesting, and a bit irksome, if the truth be told.

Lidner folded her arms across her chest. "They are obviously going to continue with this behavior until we either do something to show them that they can trust us, or-..."

"..-Or we give in," Near supplied, his eyes back on his laptop monitor and watching as the children gave up and went back to their room. Upon returning to their room, the girl went straight for her violin case, opened it, and began prepping it for play while the boy plopped himself down on the edge of the bed, looking lost.

"Or we give in," Lidner echoed gravely.

"Give in _how_ , exactly?" questioned Rester.

"By allowing them to stay with Matsuda instead," Near answered as he continued watching the children's sulky behavior, and as he did so, he had an idea of what it was his team wanted to say next. They were going to say that perhaps sending the children to stay with Matsuda would be best for all of them - given the unruly behavior they were already exhibiting. Sure, outwardly his team supported him and his actions (for the most part, anyway), but inside they were thinking that it would be in the best interests of the children to hand them over to who would have been their adoptive father. They were thinking that Matsuda was the more capable father figure of the two of them - emotionally and situationally. And of course they would think that - Matsuda had put the idea in their heads. Just like he had put the same idea in Sayu's head.

While these thoughts were cycling through his mind, he became aware that his team had not argued back yet. He had fully expected one of them - Lidner, in particular - to mention how allowing them to stay with Matsuda would be best, and yet no such mentioning occurred. It was as if, with the silence between them, there was some kind of unspecified line that none of them dared to cross. For his team, it meant pointing out that perhaps their boss had made a mistake by taking in the children. For Near, it meant reacting in some way. He realized that he was actually daring his team to say what was on their mind, daring them to push that button that would bring out all the repressed emotions that had been roiling in his gut ever since he got that first notification on his laptop about Sayu's phone. But why would he dare them to do such a thing? It was strange enough for him to even be self-aware of it enough to know that it was all there, simmering just beneath the surface of his cool, collected visage. But what was even stranger was the thought that maybe some part of him wanted someone to push him far enough. Maybe he wanted someone to evoke forth all the dark, stinging thoughts that had been churning inside of him like a poisonous cocktail for the last month - years, even. Maybe then it would be easier for him to move past it, whatever "it" was. He wasn't even sure it was something that could be moved past. He would rather it move past him and leave him alone, but it seemed that it wanted to linger about. As his hands moved of almost their own accord, using muscle memory to build his card structures from the bottom up, all he could think about was how the girl's resentment of him - resentment over something he had no control over - had exploded outward at him and how he and his hard work had paid the price. Paid the price for a decision Sayu and fucking Matsuda had made for him.

Lidner and the rest of his team must have sensed at least a small part of this, because they all held back from continuing along this line of topic. It was Gevanni who, after a moment, changed the subject, "You know.. it's late now, but neither of them phoned in any food orders today."

Near, of course, was aware of this, but he saw little point in trying to force the children to eat if they were not hungry. He doubted that either of them would have any interest in food for some time, with the loss of their mother and being in the foreign settings that they were - a thought that he quietly realized was connected to some far off memory.

..Which was something he did not want to touch. Focusing intently on laying down the foundation of the next row of cards, he said, "They will order when they are hungry."

Gevanni's only response was to pull out his own phone and begin putting in a number. Near held in a sigh, because he knew that the other man was phoning in an order from the downstairs restaurant anyway, which he would then have to go and retrieve shortly - which would then call an end to their case discussion, at least for the time being. He supposed that was okay. After all, he did have plenty of other ways of keeping himself occupied.

When Gevanni left moments later to have the food delivered to the children's room, Lidner and Rester both took this opportunity to grab something to eat for themselves. Near, on the other hand, took this opportunity to closely observe his children without any interruptions. The first thing he did as soon as they left the room was turn up the volume on his laptop. Simply viewing them on his monitor was not enough to sate his intense curiosity about them; he wanted to listen to them too, even if they said nothing at all. Even after being yelled at earlier.

As soon as the sound came on, he heard the crisp, clear sound of the song the girl was playing. He was not sure what he had been expecting of her skills, but he found instantly that she was quite skilled indeed. She was calm, confident, and flawless in her playing, much in the same way he was with handling his tediously built structures of cards, dice, and dominoes. He watched as her skilled, slender digits manipulated some of the most beautiful sounds he had ever heard from the small, wooden instrument. It was exquisite. It was haunting. It was all of these things and so much more, packed into the rich, vibrant sound. It touched something inside of him and filled him with a powerful sense of emotion he realized he had not felt since Sayu. It was almost too painful to hear, to the point where he moved his hand to turn the sound back off. But then he stopped himself and decided to endure the poisonously sweet melody while he looked to one of the other screens to observe his son instead.

In the eleven hours since the children had come to be in his possession - and in between their arrival and Matsuda's petulant display in front of the underground parking garage - the twins had done scarcely anything aside from exploring their immediate surroundings and testing out how sturdy all of the furniture was by jumping on it. Why they did this, Near did not know, except to perhaps evoke some sort of response by breaking the "be respectful of your surroundings" rule - a rule which had already been violated with the destruction of his card towers. Aside from learning that most of these ideas were the girl's, he also learned that the boy was most often willing to go along with whatever her idea was. Sometimes he did appear to be reluctant in this regard, but every time he ended up following suit. Near felt it was because he was so used to doing everything together with his sister that the thought of doing something without her, or her doing something without him, made him feel insecure.

Still, given all this, the boy was much more exploratory than his sister. While she seemed to have already decided what was important about the room and what was not, the boy seemed much more intent on looking at everything. Appearing to be comforted by his sister's serenade, the encouraged boy moved to explore more of his surroundings. He figured out right away how to turn on the television, the remote to which had about 50 buttons and would have confused most adults. He learned about the adjoining kitchen and all its features, including the walk-in pantry that could fit all of the major appliances inside and still have room for an excess of groceries. He discovered that the toilet had a feature that would warm up the seat for anyone sitting on it and that the bathtub was so deep that he almost needed a stepping stool to get over the ledge and into the tub.

His explorations were interrupted by the arrival of Gevanni, who knocked on the door before allowing himself in, pushing before him a cart laden with two full meals and an array of desserts. Startled, the boy darted back over to his sister's side, who immediately stopped playing her violin and let the bow and instrument hang by her sides. And there they stood stiffly, following the man's movements like a pair of lost cubs warily watching a predator from the shadows. Neither of them said anything or made any move, not even when Gevanni took the time to unpack and hook up all the boy's gaming systems. Neither of them helped themselves to any of the food either, not even after Gevanni left the room. The girl turned up her nose to the proffering of food, but the boy did appear to be at least mildly interested. He did also appear to be mildly interested in all that Gevanni had done to hook up his games, but he ended up shying away from both the food and his games anyway.

So the children did not like receiving help or what they perceived to be hand-outs. Or, at the very least, they did not want to appear too eager to accept kindness directed at them. Interesting. Either this was something that had been taught to them or something they had learned from experience. To Near, it spoke of experience, of learning to cope with what you had and not expect help from anyone, even to the point where asking for help, or even accepting uninvited help, could mean a sign of weakness. They were trying so hard to appear strong to the strangers who had taken them in, even when their weaknesses began to show through.

And show through they did. For the rest of the night, the children did little else aside from talk between themselves about what was going on. They were concerned about whether they would ever see or talk to Matsuda again; about who this man who dared to steal them away thought he was (even if he was really their father, it did not give him the right to come from out of nowhere and steal them away, according to the girl; on this, the boy did not comment); they were even concerned about what was going to happen when they resumed school after winter break in nine days. The children did not know, but Near had chosen to take the children at the beginning of this break because he did not think it made sense to give them more time than necessary to become too comfortable with going back to their school, seeing as he would be sending them away in a few weeks. In his mind, this was more of a convenience than it was a kindness, but either way it did not matter because that was how things were going to happen.

This worried chatter between the twins continued until around 1:30 in the morning, when they finally tucked themselves into the oversized bed which dwarfed them and all but consumed them in its massive comforter, pressed back-to-back up against each other (the girl with her violin case pulled up against her chest), and fell asleep roughly 45 minutes later. This sleep was quite fitful and broken frequently by one twin or the other, sometimes both, waking up and staring around the darkened room, as if searching for an unseen enemy. Near also found this activity curious, but he figured it was probably a sense of paranoia on their part, which would be normal, considering their surroundings were still new to them and so a sense of security had not been established yet. Also, there was the fact that their mother had been abducted right outside their home. A traumatizing event such as that would most certainly have an affect on how secure they felt in their surroundings for a long time to come. Near felt that they had no need to worry, because there was no way any unwanted person was ever going to get into the building, but he had no way of communicating this to them. Obviously they felt that the extensive security measures that were in place were meant solely to detain them, rather than protect them. In truth, the measures were there for both purposes, as well as to protect himself and his team, but still he felt that these measures were all-encompassing in these regards. And, again, he had no way of communicating this to them.

Near continued watching them like this long into the night - long after they fell asleep and long after his team retired for the evening - or morning, depending on how one chose to look at it. For Near, there were no true evenings or mornings, only days and nights, and sometimes these all blended into one another anyway because he spent most of his time indoors, away from any sort of view of the outside world, and working with people from all kinds of time zones. Time becomes an arbitrary thing to one who spends most of mankind's 24 hour days awake and occupied. It breaks down and becomes something not unlike a flowing stream, winding about its course unheeded and uninhibited, rather than being confined to a circle or a series of numbers.

Still, he noted, when morning came and Gevanni again had meals delivered to the children's room, the food that had been wheeled in the night before remained untouched.


	14. Chapter 14

For 10 year old Soichiro Yagami, most things in life were pretty simple. Respect your elders, hold doors for people, treat others the way you would like to be treated, clean up after yourself, get up, go to school, get good grades - just do all things possible to try to be a good person. If you couldn't do something to be a _good_ person, then at least try not to do anything that would make you a _bad_ person. There were enough bad people in the world - he saw it on the news all the time, even experienced some bad people himself at school. You would think that this would be a simple concept as well - hating bad people - but this was one of those complicated matters. One that wasn't quite so simple.

It was no secret that Soichiro was terrified of the bad kids at school - in particular, the one who bullied him the most, Rintaro Morimoto. Morimoto had been calling him and Chihiro names since pretty much their first day of school. Morimoto and his friends made fun of him for anything and everything - including his split ethnic heritage, of which Soichiro had no control, or knowledge, really, but none of this stopped the other boy from bullying him nonetheless. The bullying had even taken a violent turn earlier in the year, with Soichiro and his sister resorting to fleeing after school as the bullies waited around for them to throw sucker punches, or sometimes even rocks. Many times the twins went home sporting scrapes and bruises that could not merely be blamed on children being clumsy, and just as many times, Soichiro went to bed afraid of what might happen the next day at school.

He knew he should not be afraid of them. They were only bullies upon whom karma would one day frown, or so Matsuda said. Not that he, Soichiro, necessarily wished that karma would frown upon the bullies, just that they would one day understand how much they were hurting him, stop, and apologize. He knew that this was a similarly silly thought, though. If bullies would one day stop and apologize for their actions, then there would never be any need for men like his uncle Matsuda to arrest them; or need for the World's Best Detective, L, who Soichiro only knew about through gossip among his peers and the news, to solve their puzzling crimes; or even need for the fabled Kira to kill them. Not that Kira was around to really kill anyone anymore. According to Chihiro, Kira had never been a god - he was only some vigilante serial killer who had died years ago and whose name was now used to scare bad people. Soichiro wasn't really sure if he believed in any gods (Kira or otherwise), but he knew that it didn't seem to make any difference to the world if there was a God anyway. It didn't seem to matter because the world was still full of bad people, like Morimoto and worse.

Soichiro wished that he could flat-out hate Morimoto, but he didn't. Chihiro had once told him that the other boy's father abused him. And not just abused him, he got drunk and abused him. After that, Soichiro was not only afraid of Morimoto, but he also pitied him. He could only imagine how horrible things must be for him at home, to come home and be beaten by your own father just because he (the father) liked to drink alcohol. Soichiro tried to imagine what it would be like if Matsuda treated him the same way and felt so bad for the other boy, he went online and looked up the number to child welfare to anonymously report the abuse. He almost called too, but he was stopped by the sound of Chihiro's voice in the back of his mind, telling him that if they turned in the boy's father, Morimoto would probably deny it, the would-be investigation against his father would be dropped, and things would get worse for him.. which would mean that things would get worse for himself and Chihiro as well. In the end, he did not call the services, because Chihiro was always right, even if it was just her voice in his head.

These kinds of things made him wonder about his own father. He didn't know anything about his real father, had never met him, and had, in fact, thought Matsuda was his father for most of his life, until it had been revealed otherwise. He had been very hurt by this at first. He had felt betrayed, almost, by both his mom and Matsuda, and maybe even a little bit by this man who was _supposed_ to be his dad. Where was he? Why did he leave them? Did he not want them? Why? What was he really like? What was he doing now? These were all questions his mother could not quite answer for him when he asked. She had not ignored the questions, per se, but she had not answered them directly either. She couldn't tell him where his dad was, what he was doing, or why exactly he was absent from their lives, just that he didn't know about he and Chihiro and that it was better for all of them that way.

This had inadvertently led Soichiro to believe that maybe his dad was a _bad_ person. What kind of bad person, he did not know, but there could be no other reason for his mom to not want him involved in their lives.

But something about that just did not ring true for him either. His mother had been such a wonderful person, always so kind and thoughtful and understanding, how could she have ever been in love with someone who was _bad_? Maybe he was too young to really understand, or care about, everything about how sex worked, but Soichiro nonetheless understood the basics of how babies were made, and he also came to believe that most of the time this happened because two people loved each other. People had to be awfully close to each other to make a baby, and Soichiro himself could not think of anyone he would want to be that close to, so he figured that his mom must have really loved his dad.

So, those were the two things he knew - that his mom must have really loved his dad, and that his mom would never love someone who was bad. But that still did not answer the question of why his dad was not around. Something must have happened between them - that was what Chihiro said. He thought that maybe Chihiro actually knew what had happened - she had always been better at figuring things out than he was. But he had figured some things out too, like how he knew how hurt Chihiro had also been by the knowledge that Matsuda was not their real father despite how much she pretended she wasn't. With that, he understood that she knew no more than he did about what had happened between their parents - and if she did know, she probably would never tell him if she thought it would upset him. He had to accept that as fact. His mom had certainly never told him what happened, and now she would never be able to because she was gone. Soichiro was still in denial of the fact that his mother was dead, but he knew for sure that she was _gone_ and that it was unlikely she would ever come back, especially now that his real dad had come to get him. As Chihiro said, their mother never would have let them meet their father under any other circumstances.

This led to so, so many more questions, questions both he and Chihiro wanted answered. Why had he chosen now to come get them? Did he not know about them before? Was this because their mom had never told him, or was it because he chose not to be involved? Why was he living in a skyscraper? Why all the security? Why all the rules? Why was he so distant? He didn't seem normal - what happened to him? Chihiro said he was childish, selfish, clearly paranoid, and socially inept, but Soichiro thought those things could also be applied to himself, and to Chihiro. They were children, they kept to themselves a lot, they were afraid of going out, and they had no friends either - so what exactly was he to think of this man who was supposed to be their father? Chihiro never would have agreed with him, though, so he kept these thoughts to himself. And not only that, but Matsuda seemed to know about his dad and also seemed to not like him. Now why would that be?

He and Chihiro both suspected that there was something more to what was happening than either Matsuda or their father was letting on, but they had not been able to figure that part out yet. Chihiro felt it was clearly something involving their mother's case, based on the way Near (or Nate, as she kept calling him, while Soichiro himself was still unsure of how to refer to the man) had cut them off from Matsuda the moment it was mentioned, but Soichiro secretly wondered if that really was all there was to it. Was he really so paranoid that he didn't want even a pair of kids to hear about a case, their own mother's case, at that? Chihiro thought so, and she also thought it was because he was controlling, manipulative, and probably jealous of Matsuda.

Soichiro went back and forth between being afraid of his dad, who was essentially stranger to him, being curious about him, and feeling bad for him, especially after Chihiro knocked down all of his cards. He knew his sister had a temper - being on the receiving end of it could be a frightening thing - but he had never seen her do anything like _that_ before. It looked like his dad had worked hard on building all of those structures and Soichiro understood firsthand how frustrating it was to have all your hard work erased because someone didn't like you. One time, Soichiro had brought his Game Boy to school with him to play at recess. When Morimoto had asked (more like demanded) to play and Soichiro had sheepishly relented, the other boy had then proceeded to go in and erase all of his saved files before returning it to him by shoving it into his stomach, laughing, and walking away. That was the last time Soichiro had ever dared to bring any of his property to school - or anywhere out in public, for that matter.

Anyway, his dad did not strike Soichiro as a _bad_ person, but he didn't seem good either. They had been there for the better part of a week, now, and there had been no further interactions from him aside from those on their first day at their new home, if one could call it that. With them being cut off from Matsuda, Soichiro could not even ask him any more questions about his dad. From their brief conversation on the phone, it was apparent that Matsuda knew their dad - or at least knew he had come to get them. What exactly was going on? Soichiro knew that he wanted to be with Matsuda, but now that he had met his dad, he was also struck by a profound curiosity about him. He was afraid of him, yes, but he was also curious, and he kept thinking back to that shocked look on his face when Chihiro had knocked down all his cards.

It was an odd combination of feelings, for sure, but it was with all of these things on his mind, in his heart, and in his gut that made him realize that he would have to be brave. He would have to be brave, like his mother had told him to be. He would have to be brave, like his grandfather was in the stories Matsuda had told him. He would have to be brave, because no one else was going to be. He would have to be brave, because being a good person is what he chose.

* * *

It was days before either of the children did anything aside from pick at their food (they had finally given in and helped themselves to something to eat on their second day there, roughly 26 hours after Near had taken them in) and meander around their room. Neither of them had made any more attempts to leave in the meantime and they both continued to refuse any sort of interaction with Gevanni - and the rest of his team, himself included, for that matter, although Gevanni was the only one who made regular appearances to the children. Near observed on multiple occasions as the man tried to strike up conversation with the twins - asking the girl about her violin, asking the boy about his games, asking both of them about their school, anything - and each of his attempts had resulted in nothing but either being flat out ignored (by the girl) or being shied away from (by the boy). Lidner's attempts were met with similar results, which was more understandable, considering her few appearances were mostly to remind the children to be respectful of their environment after the two of them had tried (and failed) to wedge any of the large pieces of furniture against the door to keep out any intruders. To Near, intruders was the most appropriate description based off their standoffish and taciturn behavior.

Near was, in all honesty, quite impressed with them. For a pair of ten year olds in an environment filled with things that would have fascinated just about anyone, they were being remarkably stubborn. It wasn't until their fifth night there, late in the night of January 1, 2027, that one of them finally did something interesting. It was just after one in the morning when Near caught sight of some movement in the children's room. He stopped what he was doing - snapping together a long set of Hot Wheels tracks to weave in and around his newly erected card fort - and watched the screen carefully.

A darkened figure rose from the bed. In the infrared lighting, Near recognized this figure as that of his son, who was whispering across the carpet towards the bathroom. While Near did have cameras in the children's bathroom, he never monitored it - he didn't see the point, as it was unlikely they would be doing anything in there aside from using it for its intended purposes. Plus it invaded their privacy. Lidner had again pointed out that having cameras in their room at all was an invasion of their privacy, but Near had, of course, ignored her. She had then asked him why he was so keen on watching them through the cameras anyway instead of actually interacting with them, to which Near informed her that it was easier to learn about them by watching them through the cameras. "They're not specimen - they're children," Lidner had admonished, pulling the plug on his laptop, and therefore trying to force him to leave the protection of his cards at some point in near-ish future. "Go talk to them," was the last thing she had said before leaving the room with his laptop's charger. He had ended up going several hours without his laptop after the battery died, but he also ended up winning because Gevanni returned the power cord to him some time later so that they could continue their work - and, subsequently, so Near could continue to monitor the children.

As he was monitoring them now, he watched as the boy re-emerged from the bathroom and glanced at the shadowed figure of his sleeping sister on the bed. He seemed to be indecisive of whether or not he wanted to go back to bed - he shifted from one foot to the other multiple times and bit down on his index figure in his hesitation. At first, Near thought the boy was going to turn on the television and go back to bed - apparently having the television on provided some sense of security, because he seemed to sleep easier when cartoons were playing in the background. The girl seemed to tolerate this at least long enough for her brother to fall asleep, at which point she would immediately move to turn it off and then go back to bed herself.

Instead, though, Near was surprised to see the boy tiptoe softly for the door, pull it open with expert stealth, and leave with just as much expertise. Now fully interested, Near watched as the boy peeked around the corner and peered both ways down the hallway before leaving his room behind. It was past one in the morning – what was the boy doing awake and out of his room? It was a little late for exploring one's surroundings, wasn't it? He supposed it didn't matter much – there was limited space for him to explore at this time of night, being limited to the top ten floors which all had the same kind of rooms, anyway. And based on the twins' behavior he had witnessed over the last few days, he doubted that the boy would be getting up to any mischief - that seemed to be something his sister took charge on.

He continued to watch in fascination as the boy next entered the elevator and pressed the button to the next floor down - which was the floor Near and his command center was on. At that point, it finally occurred Near that the boy might not be only out for a midnight stroll, that he might be coming to see Near himself, for whatever reason. This realization was reinforced when the boy approached the entrance to the command center and peered cautiously into the open room. Quickly, Near switched the cameras to show some other part of the building and went back to snapping his Hot Wheels tracks together. He pretended not to notice that the boy was there until he spoke up.

"Um, hello?" the boy called into the room, his voice timid and small. "Are you-.. Is anybody in here?"

It took Near a moment longer than normal to form a response, but when he did, he poked his head up so that he could be seen among the towers of cards surrounding him. This sudden action caused the boy to flinch and fall back. "Yes, I am," he answered softly, "Is there something you need?"

"Um.." the boy fidgeted, tugging at the hem of his pajamas that were just as white as Near's, save for the fact that they were covered in small, golden-orange suns, "I couldn't sleep. And I am kind of hungry."

Near was silent for a moment. He understood that the children might be experiencing nightmares – or difficulty sleeping, at the very least – due to the loss of their mother. While he could not do anything to help that, he did at least have his team at his disposal. He briefly wondered why the boy had not called Gevanni or Lidner instead of coming to see him to announce that he was hungry, but dismissed it as the child simply being a child.

Near watched him carefully from behind his fortress and said, "I will call Gevanni for you. Just tell me what you would like."

"Can I… Can I have ice cream?"

In response to the request, Near didn't even hesitate as he reached over and pressed a button on one of his laptops, "Gevanni."

The response was immediate, "Yes, Near?"

"Could you bring some ice cream, please?"

"...Ice cream, sir?" Gevanni replied, sounding confused, most likely because ice cream was an unusual request coming from his boss. And Near could tell he had awoken the older man. There was a beat of silence before Gevanni inquired further, "What kind?"

Near gave the boy a look, prompting from him a timid response, "W-What kind do you have?"

There was another pause, indicating that he was surprised at hearing the boy's voice. "I didn't hear you very well," he said, "Can you please repeat that?"

Blushing, the young boy inched closer, as close as he could without getting too close to the cards, "What kind do you have?"

"Whatever kind you want, kid," said Gevanni in a more gentle tone than Near had ever heard from the man, "We can make it happen."

"Oh, um," the boy stammered, eyes shifting downwards momentarily as if in embarrassment, "Mint chocolate chip, then, please, Mr. Gevanni. If it's not too much trouble."

"Give me ten minutes," the older man replied, and then the line switched off.

Near went back to what he was doing with the race tracks. Without looking up, he said, "You are free to wait here while Gevanni fetches your ice cream."

"O-Okay," the boy stammered, shifting from one foot to the other. "Can I come sit with you?"

Near paused in his actions. He had not expecting that at all and was not sure how he felt about the children being around his cards anymore. The boy had given him no cause to believe that he would knock them over, at least not on purpose, but still...

"Mind the cards."

"Okay," the boy said and began circling the enclosure of cards, searching for the entrance. Near glanced at him out the corner of his eyes, inwardly worried that the boy might accidentally knock over his hard work after all, and relaxed once the boy successfully navigated the maze and arrived at his side.

By the time this was happening, Gevanni was entering the room with the requested bowl of ice cream. "I'll come to you," he said once he saw the position of the boy.

Near sat by quietly while the boy accepted the ice cream with a polite thank you and Gevanni went on his way. He could feel the boy's gaze upon him and it made him uncomfortable, but he could not think of anything to say, so he remained quiet. For several moments, the only sounds were that of Near connecting the race tracks and the clink of the boy's spoon as he gathered more ice cream for consumption.

"I'm sorry Chihiro knocked over all your cards."

It wasn't often that Near was taken by surprise, but taken by surprise he was by the boy's sudden apology. In his surprise, and continued discomfort with the situation, Near remained silent. He thought that by remaining quiet, it would perhaps discourage the boy from saying anything further that might increase his discomfort.

"How do you get them to stay like that?"

But it clearly was not working.

"It takes a lot of practice," Near finally answered, glancing at the laptop monitors and wanting to change it to see if the girl was still in bed, but also not wanting the boy to see that they were being monitored so closely.

The boy took another bite of his ice cream. "Can I try?"

Once again, Near was slow with his response. He could not think of anything to say, so he settled for quietly pushing a box of cards over to where the boy was sitting. The boy took the box, opened it with shaking hands, and carefully slid out the deck so as not to spill them everywhere. After flipping through the cards and looking at the mythical pictures, he went to work with trying to get them stand up. The pair sat there together for several moments, with Near working on his race tracks, and the boy working diligently, and repeatedly failing, at stacking the cards. Finally, after multiple failed attempts, he said, "Can you show me how to do it? I can't get them to stay."

"I am working on this at the moment."

"Oh… Okay."

Near was not used to having someone hanging around him like this. He found it to be a bit disconcerting and did not know how to deal with it. In an attempt to see if he could shake off the boy, he said, "Has the ice cream helped you feel better?"

"Yeah, ice cream always makes me feel better," the boy answered as he ate some more. "Do you like ice cream?"

"Not particularly."

"You don't?" said the boy in disbelief. "Well, I guess that's okay. Chihiro likes ice cream, but not as much as I do."

"Well, you can have as much as you want."

The boy smiled, "Thanks, Dad."

Near was glad he was facing away from the boy, because he swore he could feel his face heating up. "Why did you call me that?"

"Call you what?" the boy asked as he scooped more ice cream from his bowl.

Near did not answer. He disliked repeating himself. This had an added bonus of being awkward as all hell for him, so he especially did not want to repeat himself this time.

The boy must have understood either way. "Um... well.. you are my dad, aren't you?"

As awkward as it was for him, he could only respond with what was the obvious truth, "I am."

"Then.. why would I call you anything else?" reasoned the boy with such childish simplicity, it left Near wondering why he had even asked in the first place.

"Hm," Near grunted thoughtfully, but did not respond, at least not at first. "Has the ice cream satisfied you enough to try sleeping again?"

"Not really," the boy sighed. Of course, the sugar from the ice cream... Near should have realized that before giving it to the boy and inwardly cursed himself. "Can I stay here with you?"

Near could not think of a nice reason to turn him down, and he figured the boy would probably soon grow bored or sleepy (or both), so he allowed it with a quiet "yes". That turned out to be a mistake. It wasn't until nearly three thirty in the morning that the boy finally passed out on the floor next to the empty bowl of ice cream and an aborted card tower attempt. Near stared at him for several long moments before calling Gevanni again and asking him to come retrieve the child.

Moments later, Gevanni stood on the outside of the card fortress and said, "Near, I hate to tell you this, but I'm not going to be able to get him out of there without a high risk of knocking down your cards. He's going to have to stay there until he wakes up."

Near weighed his options and sighed, "Very well."

Gevanni disappeared and reappeared a few minutes later carrying a blanket and a small pillow. He carefully wedged himself between the cards and delivered the blanket and pillow to the boy, helping to get him situated and managing not to wake him up, before bidding his boss good night (or good morning) and taking his leave. It wasn't until after Gevanni left the room that Near realized with annoyance that if Gevanni had had room to maneuver himself, a blanket, and a pillow into the card fortress without knocking it over, then he damn well could have maneuvered himself and the boy out of it.


	15. Chapter 15

The first thing Chihiro realized when she set foot in her home was that something was wrong. Something was wrong, but she couldn't quite place what it was. As she was gazing around the kitchen and living area, though, nothing jumped out at her as being out of place. Her grandma was there, getting some afternoon green tea ready for the family. Her mom and Soichiro were nowhere to be seen, but she had a vague awareness that her brother was upstairs in their room, playing video games, and that her mother was upstairs taking a nap. That was fine. In fact, everything seemed to be fine - _seemed_ to be... except for that nagging feeling that something was wrong.

She began to make her way for the stairs, deciding that she wanted to see her mother. Instead of walking, though, she felt as though she was gliding, which was an especially curious feeling as she ascended the stairs. The walls also seemed to move around her, rather than her moving between the walls. The sensation left her feeling rather disoriented, and she was glad that when she finally reached her mom's room, the feeling dissipated. She opened the door to see her mother laying there, asleep. Chihiro smiled and climbed onto the bed with her, the bed seeming to be much higher off the ground than she remembered. There she curled up next to her with her back pressed against her side, as she has done a thousand times, and simply laid there, feeling herself fade into sleep.

It was at this time that she again she felt as if something was wrong, and really, it took her too long to figure out what it was. Her mother was not breathing. She could feel no movement behind her, no warmth. How had she missed that upon entering the room, upon laying down next to her? If her mother was dead, wouldn't she have noticed? She was sure she would have.

It took more effort than necessary for her brain to tell her body to move, to sit up and turn around so that she could actually see her mom, make sure that she really was not breathing, that she really was dead. She had to be wrong about this. She just had to be. Her mother couldn't be dead. But her body, for some reason, felt like it weighed a million pounds, like it was made out of granite, granite like the monument that marked the final resting place of most of her family...

She felt her body move, _finally_ , sitting up and beginning to turn around, and-...

She was back to lying down again. Wasn't she just sitting up? Maybe she had only dreamed that she was. Strange, but she had to try again. Again, she worked hard at instructing her body to sit up and turn around so she could see her mother. The whole process felt like it was taking hours, which was absurd, and yet there was the feeling either way. When she finally was able to sit up and turn around again, she was confused when she realized she was lying back down. Again.

Now she was beginning to feel panicked. What was going on? Did she have no control of her body, for whatever reason? Was something, or someone, holding her down? No - there wasn't anyone there but her mother and herself. And she had to get up, she knew she had to, because if she didn't... if she didn't-... her mom was going to die. And she was going to die, too. She was going to die, next to her mother, and maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing, maybe not at all. Why not? She only wanted to be with her mother, now and forever, and being stuck in this bed would be a good way for that to happen.

But she didn't want to die. She didn't want her mother to die, either. Even though she couldn't feel her mother breathing and everything behind her felt cold, she still tried again to sit up and turn around, and when she felt herself moving for a third time, again the process feeling like it was taking a ridiculously long time, this time she-...

This time her eyes blinked open, wide open, as if she had only closed them for a second. She realized right away that she was no longer in her mother's room, much less at her house, and that her mother was also not there. Of course she wasn't - she was dead. She was dead, never to come back, and that was that. The raw ache of this reality made itself known to her as it always did the moment she awoke from sleep, her heart accepting this heavy burden as a permanent part of it now.

The room was dark, the darkness broken only by the ambience of the city lights glittering just outside the window behind her. Everything was quiet and still.

Well, then, everything seemed to be in order, except for that feeling of something being _wrong_ , a feeling which continued to carry over from her dream and made her feel uneasy. That lack of warmth and movement behind her also carried over, apparently, and it was at that moment that she realized what was wrong.

Turning over, her gaze fell upon her brother's side of the bed. It was empty. In a moment of panic, she pushed the blanket off and sat up for real this time, her eyes widening to take in as much light as possible as her vision adjusted to the dark. She instinctively looked towards the bathroom and saw that the door was standing open, the light off. Her brother was not in there. Where on earth was he? Was this a continuation of the dream she had just awakened from? It couldn't be. It felt too real, and everything in real life could be explained if you looked hard enough for the answer.

She leaned over to inspect at the nightstand on his side of the bed, and was half-relieved, half-annoyed to see that his phone was missing. Had he seriously decided to go out exploring, at-... What time was it? She pushed a button on her own phone, waking it up so as to look at the time. 3:57 in the morning. Had her brother really decided to go exploring at nearly four in the morning? She supposed she wasn't all that surprised. He had been looking like he wanted to go explore all the other rooms and floors for the last couple days, but Chihiro had not been interested in the slightest, of course, and one twin rarely did something without the other.

Maybe he had been awakened by a bad dream, too. Maybe he had been too awake and bored to go back to sleep at that point. But usually he would go watch TV if he couldn't sleep, even though it sometimes disturbed her. Chihiro looked over at the television set and did not see any of that ghostly afterglow TVs sometimes had when recently turned off. Maybe he had left the room in search of another TV to use, so as not to wake her... That would be okay, but she still wanted to make sure she knew where he was.

Flipping open her phone and opening the messaging app, she sent off a quick text to her brother, _Hey, where are you?_

When her phone buzzed less than a minute later, she flipped it back open and stared in dismay at the returned message.

 _He is with me._

This message was not from her brother. In fact, it was from another contact altogether. Her face scrunching up in indignation, she texted back, _What is he doing with you?_

Pressing her molars together, she fumed while she waited for the answer, and when the answer came, she became even more annoyed.

 _Sleeping._

Perhaps it was the abruptness of the answers, perhaps it was who the answers were coming from, or perhaps it was even the slight feeling of betrayal of knowing her brother had gone to see _him_ (Although, she thought, of course he did - that was just like her brother, to try to make friends with the enemy, even an enemy who was only using him.. He meant well, sure as hell he did, and she should have expected no less from him) - whichever it was, it got Chihiro moving. She snapped her phone shut with a flare of anger, grabbed her violin case that had been beside on her the bed, and then hesitated as she remembered that she was still in her pajamas. She peered down at the royal purple material, at the miniature replicas of the night's constellations, and huffed. It may be that her mother had gotten these pajamas for her per her request (and right before her death, no less), but Nate was always wearing pajamas, at least as far as she could tell, childish as he was.

That made up her mind in a hurry. Switching on the bedroom light, Chihiro went to the closet, where Gevanni had hung all their clothes as a kind gesture after the twins refused to unpack, and selected for herself a regular outfit consisting of dark blue jeans, a plain cerulean blue shirt, and a burgundy hooded sweatshirt on top of that in case the building was cool. She brushed out her hair, pinned back her bangs, slipped on her shoes, reacquired her violin, and strode out the door and into the hallway, into battle. It was time to crash this stupid pajama party.

* * *

Near was not at all surprised to see that his daughter was coming to pay him a visit. Actually, he doubted there would be much actual _visiting_. There was a rather large possibility that this _visit_ would consist entirely of her yelling at him and knocking down his cards again. Now, he could bear the inconvenience of being yelled at - as he had many times in the past - but what he could not stand was the thought of someone coming in and destroying his towers again. He put a lot of hard work into them, carefully angling them to withstand small currents of air while employing a level of dexterity many (including Sayu) could only marvel at. They were neat, orderly, their perfect patterns created a visual cue for organizing his bullet train thoughts, and the thought of someone coming in and laying ruin to it again almost set him on edge.

It set him on edge enough that his hand moved of its own volition over to the button on his laptop that would call any one of his team into the room. All he had to do was instruct one of them to come and intercept the girl and send her on her way. He glanced over at his son, who was still curled up asleep on the floor a few feet away. Why had he not just called Gevanni back in, called him out on his obnoxious trickery, and demanded that he take the boy back to his room at once? Oh, maybe it was because he was afraid that Gevanni really _would_ knock over his cards in the process. Even if it was done on purpose, Near knew that the man would be just as likely to claim that it had been an accident, just to prove a point. Either way, Near could have ended up with a floor full of scattered, fallen cards all over again and that was honestly not a risk he was willing to take. It could have also been that Near was embarrassed to realize that one his team had fooled him in such a stupid way, but there was no way he was ever going to admit that, not even to himself. Or it could have been that maybe some part of him did not really wish to disturb the boy, because there was something about him that reminded him very much of the boy's mother. It was something that made him feel terribly and unexpectedly conflicted - to simultaneously want the boy to stay and leave, both for the same reason. At the very least, it left him feeling uncomfortable, but he could at least be assured that the boy would not knock down his cards.

Still, be it his momentary lapse of judgment or be it his insistent desire to protect his hard work, it seemed he may have inadvertantly sealed the fate of his cards anyway. The girl would surely come in and destroy it all over again.

No, he thought as he quietly glanced at the boy again, she would do no such thing. Once the girl saw that her brother was safe and was, in fact, content and asleep, she would not want to disturb him. Near may have learned right away how quick-tempered and brash she could be, but in the last week he had also learned through his remote observation how much leeway she allowed her brother. The boy did a number of things that clearly did not align with the girl's own interests - watching certain programs on the television, playing video games.. even standing right in front of the large windows and looking down at all the foot traffic below - but she would typically indulge him in all of these things, especially if he asked. Near had observed with some mild interest that she seemed to be shy of the windows, but whenever her brother pointed out something going on beyond them, his sister would reluctantly come over to appease him.

However, loud and destructive or not, he would have to deal with her company. He may have had experience dealing with hostile behavior towards him, but that did not mean that this experience granted him any comfort nor did that mean that he had any idea of how to handle children. His mind went back to thinking of how the children had behaved when he had first met them and reflected on how much had been taken off guard. He had been taken off guard a number of times in the last week, which was definitely an unusual thing for him, but his team had tried to warn him that having children was unfamiliar territory for him, and surprises were bound to come with that territory. They had tried to warn him and he had, admittedly, not listened. He had not listened because he supposed that some part of him had a point to prove. He had to prove that he could handle the children, even though they were only going to be with him for a short period of time. He wasn't even exactly sure of who he was wanting to prove this point to, just that he wanted to prove it.

He _had_ proved it so far. The children were safe, they were being fed and cared for, they would be going back to school soon, and so far no major disasters had occurred (aside from the destruction of his card towers) as far as he was concerned. Everyone was overreacting when it came to his ability, or supposed inability, to care for the children. And when this was all over, he would be able to say that he had more than proven his ability to do so.

He would have to keep on proving it, now and again, because it was not long before the girl came rushing into the room, her violin case in hand and looking like she wanted to charge right through his wall of cards. Near pulled his hand away from his laptop, deciding against calling his team for help, and carefully watched the girl through the latticework of cards. He watched with some satisfaction as his deductions about her were proven correct. He could tell by the flicker of her eyes and the quiet passage of emotions on her face that his cards were safe - for now, anyway. He was further proven correct when he observed as the girl negotiated her way through the narrow openings between his card towers. She pressed her lips together as she gazed down at her brother, creating a look that sorely reminded him of the girl's mother, and then she lowered herself next to him, gently setting her violin case on the floor next to her.

"Is there something you need?" he softly prompted once she had settled.

Her answer was blunt and concise, if not a bit short, "No."

Near was not entirely sure of what to expect from her after that. Based on her behavior so far, he could only assume that her visit would consist of one of a few things - insolence, contempt, or curiosity. Since she had not reacted violently, his assumptions could be narrowed down to her either being completely silent and ignoring his presence, or she would start asking him questions. Well, he was prepared to handle either eventuality.

She was quiet for so long, though, that he was sure that she had settled on the former, until she suddenly shifted and said, "So, you're a detective." She said this as suddenly and matter-of-factly as if she was simply stating the weather.

Near would have liked to be able to say that he was surprised by her announcement, but he wasn't. In addition to learning a lot about her stubbornness, insecurities, and her closeness with her brother, he had also come to realize that she was quite sharp, and he was of course sharp enough himself to realize that he would have come to the same conclusion had their roles been reversed. He knew that between Matsuda's big mouth and the situation itself, enough information had been revealed to draw her to the conclusion that he was a detective.

His team had expressed concern over the twins' conversations - wondering why he had come to get them pretty much immediately after their mother's death, wondering why he had cut them off from Matsuda as soon as he mentioned their mother's case, wondering about all the assistants, security, and affluence, and wondering about their father's outwardly methodical quirks. Among his team's concerns was that the children were not only going to figure out that he was a detective, but that they would figure out exactly _which_ detective he was and that they would tell their peers upon their return to school. Near, in turn, pointed out that there was no need to worry about that. Even if they did somehow manage to narrow down the truth of his identity as a detective, he knew that none of their peers would believe them. They were anti-social and quite obviously were used to having no friends outside of each other, and because of this, Near knew it was highly likely that they were among the bullied in school. The boy in particular had the air of someone who has been repeatedly hurt, both emotionally and physically - Near knew this from his shyness and his tendency to flinch at unexpected movements. The girl was very obviously insecure about herself in a way that told Near that while she often (or always) knew that she was right, it was rare that anyone either listened to or believed her. He knew that the twins had not endured any abuse from either their mother or Matsuda, because aside from his own observations, he was certain the director would have mentioned it to him during his process of claiming them. So he came to the understanding that his children were often ostricized as the black sheep among their peers. Because of this and because of their traits, he knew that neither he nor his team had anything to worry about where it came to the security of their operation. Not only that, but when it came time to send the twins to Wammy's, all of their suspicions would no longer matter because they would then be among peers who were all a part of the same program to become the next L - not that he did not already have a replacement lined up, but that was beside the point.

That all may be, but he still did not want to just come out with it - he wanted to hear it from her. He wanted to hear what she had to say. He had listened to the boy - now he wanted to listen to her, now that she was here, anyway. He knew that he could flush it all out of her by by tapping into that aforementioned insecurity of hers, and he did this by not responding to her at all. He did not even so much as glance in her direction. He instead kept his eyes lowered and focused on putting together his race tracks, as he had been doing with the boy that very evening.

And after a moment of silence, his deductions about her were once again proven correct when she huffily explained, "I know you're a detective. I don't think it's a coincidence that you only came to take us after my mom died." - As she said this, Near noted the flutter of her eyelids, as if saying that her mother was dead was not as easy as she made it out to be. - "I don't think you knew about us before then, and I think the only way you found out was because Matsuda called you for help on her case." She paused, as if to give him a moment to think about what she had just said, and then plowed on, "And I furthermore think that you cut us off from Matsuda because you are currently working on her case."

Near waited until she sounded like she was done, and then, softly, he said, "Okay."

The girl pressed her lips together, again in that way that made her look so much like her mother, and refused to be deterred by his aloof disposition. "Are you working on my mom's case?"

"In a manner of speaking."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means.." Near said, casting a very quick sideways glance at her, "..that I will not be discussing it with you."

The girl sat up straighter, clearly irked by the rebuff. "Why not?"

"As you said, it is an ongoing case, and I do not wish to discuss case details with a child."

"What kind of argument is that?" she scoffed, " _You're_ more of a child than _I_ am."

Near blinked at her, daring her to elaborate. But she did not.

"Matsuda told us about any updates," she pointed out instead.

Near fleetingly thought about reminding her that Matsuda had also not solved the case and had come to him for help, but seeing no favorable result in doing so, he instead chose to forgo a verbal response this time as well.

His lack of response, naturally, drew out further peeved words from the girl, "He hadn't told us anything in a while, though, even before you cut us off from him." She emphasized this by flipping down one of the locks on her violin case with a loud, crisp snap. "So that means there is nothing new. Is that why you don't want to discuss it? Because there is nothing _to_ discuss?"

Near almost wanted to smirk at her behavior, for it amused him for reasons that he could not even begin to explain. Her behavior was quite obnoxious, oh yes for sure, but it was also familiar. "Precisely," he answered quietly.

"Precisely what?"

"There is nothing to discuss... with you. I believe I said so not a moment ago."

The girl illustrated her frustration with his evasive answers by snapping another lock on the worn violin case. She looked like she wanted to play the instrument instead, but he knew she would not on account of her slumbering brother. Near truthfully would not have minded if she did decide to play - he rather liked listening to her play, the same way he liked his watching his son's exploratory curiosity of his environment.

"Aren't you afraid of waking your brother?" he ventured casually.

The girl snorted. "He sleeps with the TV on - I doubt this will wake him up," she said, snapping the lock again. "And don't change the subject."

Near, again, decided not to respond.

"I'm just going to stay here and annoy you until you tell me."

"You are free to stay here as long as you wish," he said pleasantly, noting the forced indifference on her expression, "At least until my team arrives in a few hours to begin conducting business." And then that transformed her indifference back into indignation.

"I will knock down your cards again if you try to make me leave."

"Then you will not be allowed entry to this room in the future."

The girl paused, considered, and then sniffed, "Yes, we will." Near gave no indication that he was listening to her and her tantrum, but still she went on, "If you were just going to lock us out, then we wouldn't be here at all."

At that, Near finally raised his head to look at her, gave her a long, blank look, and then went back to what he was doing. This seemed to break something in her argumentative demeanor, because she fell silent after that. He was both annoyed and surprised to find that she was right. He wasn't going to lock them out. He had no intention of ever locking them out. Locking them out would be admitting defeat, in his mind. Locking them out would mean that not only had the girl gotten to him in some way, but also that Matsuda, and perhaps even his team, (perhaps even Sayu), had gotten to him. He wondered if they hadn't all gotten to him already. His team had repeatedly expressed concern over his emotional ability to handle children. Roger has also questioned him on this, and Near had been as honest about that as he had ever been about anything. He did not know. He did not know if he was ready to handle (or capable of handling) the emotions involved in taking the children. From the very beginning, he had never known what to expect. He could predict their movements and behaviors based off his observations and past interactions with them, but he could not predict their insights, be they juvenile or astute. For someone who was used to being in control and knowing what to expect, this was a truly frightening thing.

But still, locking them out would be admitting defeat...

He cast a sidelong glance at his daughter and wondered if perhaps he was not the only one who had latched onto someone's insecurities that night, strange as the idea was to him. Although.. perhaps his son had as well, with referring to him as "Dad" and accepting his indifferent company so easily. They were both indeed full of surprises, more so than he had initially given them credit for. He did not know yet if this was good or bad, and this was also unnerving to him.

The silence between them remained for several hours, until Gevanni finally came strolling in a couple hours later with a cart containing Near's morning biscuits and tea. It did not escape his attention that there were two teacups and double the amount of biscuits that he normally consumed on his own. The sound of the cart rolling along abruptly ceased, presumably once the man noticed the added presence. Near could feel two pairs of eyes on him and refused to acknowledge this.

After a moment, apparently realizing nobody was going to offer up any sort of explanation, Gevanni let out an amused puff of air and sounded like he was smirking as he said, "I'll just go get some more biscuits."


	16. Chapter 16

**11/23/2017 - Chapter updated! I wrote more to this chapter, because I felt it was unfinished before. I am currently working on the next chapter. Sorry for any confusion this update has caused - I originally had an author's note for Chapter 17, but when I deleted it, it put it back up to the top of the most recently updated fics. x.x Thank you for your patience!  
**

* * *

 **Hi everyone. Sorry this has taken so long to get out - writing for me has been like pulling teeth lately. I'm afraid that this chapter is also shorter than some of the others, but I see it as more of a transition, so I hope you are entertained nonetheless. Thank you for being patient with me. Finally, I know this series doesn't have a lot of Death Note-y elements right now, but I promise that those are coming later on down the line - not in this fic, but in what I plan to be the next fic.**

* * *

Lidner could not believe what she was seeing, and she had seen a lot in her 43 odd years of life. She had had seen people die, seen corpses, and had even stared death itself in the eyes so many times that it had, admittedly, desensitized her to a degree - not enough to strip her of her humanity, but enough to not let the details hang her up anymore. She had even bore witness to a notebook that could kill people and the birth of a new, deadly religion as a result of a delusional kid who fancied himself a god. Needless to say, in her life, Lidner had seem some shit.

For all of that, she could not believe the juvenile exchange she was currently witnessing between her boss and his daughter. It was like watching a standoff between two children, except one of them was a 32-year-old man - or man-child, more like. She had known Near to be childish before, and she had not expected any differently from his daughter who actually was a child, but this was raising the bar way higher than anything childish he had ever done before. This was beyond absurd, and not a single one of the other adults was being the least bit helpful.

"Do you have to play that right there?" she sighed in exasperation, arms folded, her demand directed at the young girl as she ground out sour note after sour note on her violin while standing just outside the door to the command center. And here Lidner had always thought that such delicate wooden instruments were crafted for making beautiful sounds, not sounds that made her think of a drowning elephant or the sound of a heavy axe being dragged across the pavement. Never would she ever feel obligated to explain to another person how it was she knew what that sounded like, but the current noise did have an uncanny similarity to it.

"I have played all over the building and this spot has the best acoustics," the girl replied coolly, her eyes flashing open momentarily to cast her a matter-of-fact smirk before closing again, as if she alone could feel the beauty of the music. And she would be very, very much alone in that feeling, indeed and so forth, because Lidner was fighting to not screw up her eyes in pain. It was a wonder how any of the others had endured thus far as well, and she was especially impressed with the continued collected calm of her boss as he went right along setting up his race tracks as if a one-manned (or girl-ed) soundtrack of hell was not taking place just a few feet away.

"..We've noticed."

"Good." Another screech of her bow across the strings. The poor thing sounded like it was crying out for help. An added frustration was knowing how well the girl could actually play - so well, in fact, that her current abysmal display could only be done by someone who was well-acquainted with the instrument. Someone who knew just the right angle and amount of force needed to produce the series of tortured screeches they were all currently being forced to endure. Not even a beginner could have played so poorly. To play that poorly took real finesse, care, and skill, Lidner was convinced.

Oh, she did not need this right now - or ever, for that matter, but especially not right now. Not with the small amount of sleep she had gotten over the last few days, ever since the children had begun venturing forth from their room. They - or rather, the girl in particular - had shown a number of destructive tendencies, including but not limited to unravelling rolls of toilet paper down the length of the hallway, going into all the rooms and leaving on every single light and electronic device, and setting up a rather impressive checkerboard of plastic cups just outside their room so that no one could make it through without making any noise, whereupon both kids would run and hide and refuse to come out, even at threats of letting them go hungry for the rest of the day (this never happened anyway, because sure enough Gevanni would defy Lidner by wheeling them in a cart full of food later on). Most of these occurrences took place during the night, and on the third night of these events, Lidner had decided that she had had enough. When she questioned Near about their behavior and what should be done about it, all he had done was inform her that they were not actually being _destructive_ , they were not breaking any rules, and that if it concerned her so much, she should feel free to stay up all night to prevent such behavior. She was not at all like her boss in this regard - she truly valued her sleep, especially knowing that her boss could seemingly go days without sleep and therefore expected his team to do so at times as well. Having any amount of sleep stolen from her had a tendency to wear her temper thin, and this time it had been worn so thin - not only by the lack of sleep, but also by the constant antagonistic behavior from the girl - she was ready to take the girl's violin and toss it off the roof.

In fact, she was struggling not to go through with this fantasy even now, as she watched her boss continue to tune out his surroundings.

" _Near..._ " said Lidner with a sharp, impatient sigh while shooting a pointed look in his direction.

"She is free to play wherever she wants," he said so quietly, Lidner would have had trouble understanding him under normal circumstances, but with the racket going on it was nearly impossible. She unfortunately did still hear him, though, and was not the least bit surprised that the little bastard (or not so little anymore, although Lidner did still sometimes see that sixteen-year-old boy who was also too small and too codependent for his age despite being a genius) was not going to be any help. Or maybe he was trying reverse psychology on her. It may have worked on Mello once upon a time, but she had the distinct feeling that it was not going to work on the girl.

"But what about your rule about the kids not disrupting our business?"

"I am neither in your command center nor being destructive of my surroundings, as per your stated rules," she girl announced imperiously from her position just outside the aforementioned command center.

"She has a point," she heard Gevanni chip in from behind, which was so unhelpful Lidner almost laughed.

"Destroying all of our hearing is included in that," Lidner argued.

"I'll say." That time it was Rester, and he sounded even less enthused than Lidner herself did.

"Oh, please, a mere one hundred decibels is not going to destroy anyone's hearing," the girl sniffed and went right on playing.

"Clearly, you know nothing about decibels."

"More than you know about making foolproof rules."

"Perhaps they should have been made soundproof," came Gevanni's voice again, and this time his comment was joined by a small snort from the Commander.

"I did not make the rules - your father did."

"Fine - more than _he_ knows about making rules, then."

"I believe I have already stated that no rules are currently being broken," Near dismissed in his usual soft, placid tone.

"Nobody asked you for _your_ opinion, _Nate_ ," the girl fired back, grinding out a particularly nasty note.

Near did not appear to be the least bit disturbed by this. "It is not an opinion - it is fact."

"Whatever."

"Speaking of facts," Lidner interrupted the sophomoric display, "The fact is, you are disrupting our business."

"I see no 'business' going on here."

"That's because you are currently here, creating a racket."

"It's called Industrial."

"More like dubstep, but without the bass that might actually make it enjoyable." Lidner swore she was going to shove Gevanni down the stairs when this was all over, right after throwing Chihiro's violin off the rooftop.

"Is that really still a thing?" Rester asked casually.

"Apparently it's alive and well in our youth," Gevanni answered, and as Lidner glanced back at her teammates, she could see Gevanni making a circular gesture by putting his forefinger and thumb together, as if in approval of the so-called music.

"What's dubstep?" came the little boy's small voice as he stood by the food cart, half-heartedly munching on a raspberry macaron. He had been in the room since early that morning, accepting the cart full of goodies that Gevanni had wheeled in for him and gradually opening up to the team, much to his sister's chagrin, but now he was hanging back and watching the entire exchange in a worried, indecisive silence - at least until speaking up just now.

"It's the sound of two robots duking it out on the streets."

"That's it," Lidner snapped, finally having had enough. "Both of you, out."

"I am already 'out'," pointed out the girl.

"This is my command center, Agent Lidner," Near reminded.

"Not you, the girl and-.."

"Both of us?" mumbled the boy.

"Both of you," Lidner repeated, albeit a bit more gently for the boy's sake, knowing how sensitive he was.

The boy frowned ruefully and set down his half-eaten confection. He then moved around his father's sprawling card fortress and past his sister, who had finally stopped playing, and left without another word. The girl's eyebrows came together as she shot each of the adults - Lidner in particular - an accusatory look, as if to say "Now look what you did," before she went after him, also without another word.

Nobody said anything for at least a full fifteen seconds after that. Each of the adults - save for Near - let out various sighs of relief and went back to what they were starting on before the girl had begun her treacherous violin solo. Lidner watched her boss as he continued right along playing with his toys, making no attempt to comment on the situation.

"Near," she said with a sigh, weaving her way between the walls of cards and coming to stand beside the childlike detective, "Someone's going to have to say it, and I guess it's going to have to be me. You're going to have to start behaving like a parent and laying down rules, or else she is going to continue to walk all over you - all over all of us."

"I did lay down the rules. None of them were being broken," he countered offhandedly. He paused for only a second and added, "You said we had business to discuss?"

Now, Lidner had to admit that could see where he was coming from - the girl had not _technically_ broken any of the rules, but the spirit of the rules had indeed been violated as far as Lidner was concerned. Near needed to add on to the rules, evolve with them as they all learned more about each other, and reinforce them, or at least let his team reinforce them, if they were going to get anywhere with the children. True, the kids were not going to be there for very long, but that did not mean that they had to let the kids do whatever the hell they wanted in the meantime. Near was the only actual parent of the group, but he was behaving the least as such, and Lidner thought she really should not have been surprised at all by that. In many ways, Near was still so much like a child himself, even now in his thirties. She very much doubted they would ever be able to leave him alone to take care of himself, something which only reinforced her loyalty to him.

At any rate, she knew that arguing with him about it any further would not furnish any new or favorable results, so she dropped it for the time being. Besides, there were more important matters to discuss, ones that she knew Near would want to know about right away. In fact, she had just about been ready to engage him when the girl arrived on the scene with her violin. Apparently being an earlier riser than his sister, the boy had already arrived, and that was fine - they were only loosely going over the overnight security alerts and had not moved onto any serious case discussions, so they had allowed him to stay while he ate his fill of breakfast and snacks. It was only when the girl showed up that even their loose discussions had been put on hold.

But now it was time to resume business. Lidner pursed her lips and tapped on her phone's screen display. "Yes, actually. You might want to take a look at this," she said as the information transmitted from her phone onto her boss' laptop, which he immediately opened. "I think we've got a problem."

* * *

" _Daddy_ _ **Nearest**_ ,

 _They may be your children, but they are also mine, so you're just going to have to accept that there is nothing you can do to keep them from me, come hell or high water - or towers, for that matter. Thanks_ _for having the hotel ban me for life for no reason at all, by the way - that's real mature, but I guess I can't expect much in the way of maturity from a guy in his thirties who goes around wearing pajamas and playing with toys all day. Aside from that, I would say that of all the immature things you have done, banning me takes the cake, but then again, you did take the children for no reason other than to be a vindictive ass. But I digress. The children are my chief concern, and I am sure that as a psycho, you have no idea how to actually care for them. So to be helpful, I have composed a list for you. Make sure to keep this list Near and dear - I'm sure you will need it._

 _\- School starts back up on Tuesday, January 6, so make sure their school bags and uniforms are ready to go._

 _\- Both kids need to have their school uniforms washed and ironed daily, and ready to go in the morning._

 _\- May need new shoes or clothes by now, if you keep them long enough I'm sure you'll notice that they grow like weeds. Just be glad you never had to change a diaper! Although, maybe your team knows all about that, huh?_

 _\- Bus passes need to be renewed._

 _\- Chihiro has violin lessons on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays immediately after school. Lessons are from 3-4:30 PM and cost about 55,000 yen per month. Better get her re-enrolled real soon or she'll be real upset. Soichiro will usually clean up classrooms while he waits for her on these days, don't expect them to travel without each other._

 _\- Both do well in school and tend to be self-sufficient and help each other with their homework, so I doubt they will need to ask you, but if they do ask, don't just give them the answers._

 _\- Make sure they brush hair and teeth before school and before bed - most of they time they don't need to be told._

 _\- I'm guessing you plan on keeping them locked up, since you are a shut-in, but they like Saturday and Sunday morning brunches, and love going to cafes and to the arcade - not that you'll ever get out much with them, but there you go._

 _\- Soichiro hates green bell peppers and does not like crusts on his sandwiches, he likes them cut into triangles and likes extra condiments. Chihiro hates plain carrots - cooked carrots are fine, especially if they are in a stew. Otherwise, they both love curry rice and veg, and tonkatsu, and fries. They also like green tea in the afternoon after school. Hey, do you eat normal food like a normal person, or do you just eat junk food all the time, too? Speaking of which, DO NOT let Soichiro have anything with sugar in it after 8 PM or else he will never sleep._

 _\- Soichiro likes to sleep with the TV on, but usually Chihiro will turn it off at some point during the night, not that you have to worry about electric bills or anything._

 _\- Chihiro is not fond of heights - found that out the hard way one day at the amusement park._

 _\- Soichiro needs down time to play his games - they help him with his schoolwork._

 _\- They have been bullied at school in the past, and may continue to be, so keep on the lookout for any depressive or unusual behavior from either of them - and please talk to them if this becomes an issue. Or let them talk to me, or someone. Please, I'm being serious - this has been a huge struggle for them, and the last thing they need is an emotionally vacant parental figure to not offer them any sort of help or support._

 _\- Speaking of help and support, they need a counselor to talk about their mother. I don't think you or any of your team knows what they are going through or how to handle this, something I'm sure you have overlooked in your haste to show me up. They need to be seen by a professional._

 _\- Never separate them - they hate being alone, and they especially hate being away from each other, and I'm sure that has only gotten worse since everything._

 _I do hope you found this to be helpful, but of course if things become too much for you, I'd be happy to take the kids off your hands. You know my number - don't be afraid to call._

 _Matsuda_

Near was, for once (or maybe not for once, with all the chaos that had erupted over the last few days) dumbfounded. Well, maybe not dumbfounded, more like pissed off. Okay, maybe it was a little bit of both. A lot of both. More pissed off than dumbfounded. Whichever, Near could not pinpoint what exactly about Matsuda's online personal ad dumbfounded/pissed him off the most - the insinuation that he did not know simple things like when school resumed or that the children needed new school uniforms (Near had, in fact, already seen to this - or had Lidner see to it, anyway); the assumption that he had no knowledge of what the children were going through; or the blatant disregard for his own, and the children's, security. That last one stood out to him as the largest of Matsuda's ever-growing list of infractions, though. To advertise both his and the children's names (despite the fact that his own name was merely an alias) as well as give clues to their location, all in a pointless effort to try to get a reaction out of Near, was both impulsive and idiotic. Seriously, how big of an idiot did one have to be to not see the inherent risks in what had just been pulled?

"Agent Lidner," Near said after a quiet moment in which he gathered himself, hoping that his team did not sense how truly incensed he was. "How long was that up?"

"Nearly two hours," she said, shifting from one foot to the other. She was obviously leaving out the part where she would have been able to tell him sooner had he dispelled his daughter's sophomoric tirade in greater haste, perhaps because she was expecting a sharp reaction out of him. Perhaps this was because she knew that he was also thinking the same thing. Perhaps it was because she was also too much aware of the risks the children were imposing on all of them.

Whichever the case, Near would not be allowing himself to react as his agent was fearing he would. "Commander Rester," he said calmly, looking away from his laptop and going back to his toys, despite his burning hot fury over the impudent fool's insults and personal attacks.

"Yes, sir?" the commander replied, no doubt in caution, seeing as they had all read the same content.

"I want this content removed immediately."

"Of course," said the man, and immediately he set himself upon the task of having the post removed.

And, last but most certainly not least: "Gevanni."

"Sir?"

"May I have some more tea, please?" he said, gingerly holding out his empty cup. He could have reached over the extra six or so inches to help himself to the teapot, but a slow, rhythmic throbbing had settled itself into the right side of his skull, which buzzed angrily every time he moved. He wanted nothing more than to put his head down at that moment, but he could not allow his team to see him in such distress. He would never hear the end of it, especially from Lidner.

"Sure thing," said Gevanni, and he began making his way towards his boss.

When Gevanni arrived at his side and poured him a fresh cup of tea, Near looked down at it, at the dull reflection of the monitors set up around the room, feeling even that small amount of light add to the headache that was steadily blossoming into a migraine. He wished he had some paracetamol instead of the tea, but it would have to do.

* * *

When they returned to their room, Chihiro did as Soichiro expected - she resumed her angry melodies, although this time she did begin to play actual music. It did still hurt his ears, but then he was definitely more used to this than the adults who had taken them in, so he did not mind so much. What he did mind was the feeling that he had upset his sister. He wasn't stupid enough to ask her if she was okay, because A.) it was obvious that she was not (not that either of them were), and B.) he knew that when she was like this, she stopped listening; she shut everything and everyone out, and the harder one tried to reach her, the louder she would screech on her violin, louder and harder, until even the instrument itself was begging the person to stop trying.

He wanted to explain to her that he was only trying to help, that he was wanted to learn more about their dad, and maybe even his assistants, so that they could all get along better. Maybe at first he wasn't sure about any of them, but the more time he spent with them, the more he realized that they weren't going to hurt either him or Chihiro. The more time he spent with them, the more he began to think that they might be okay. He was sure that getting to know them all better was the right thing to do - at least it felt right to him.

It didn't feel right to Chihiro, though, her displeasure over the situation making itself very well known by the thunderous sounds she was forcing out of her poor little violin. It wasn't often that they had a disagreement, mostly because he had never truly defied her before. It wasn't like she bossed him around or anything like that, just that usually she had all the ideas and Soichiro saw no reason to disagree with her. It also wasn't often that they disagreed on something, but when they did, they typically never spoke of it. Chihiro would go do her thing, he would go do his, and then later they would reconvene and move on without mentioning their disagreement. This wasn't because he was afraid of defying her or anything like that, it was because he knew that she was usually right about things. He knew that, in this instance in particular, she was trying to protect them both from an enemy - or enemies.

But Soichiro didn't see them as their enemies . Maybe at first he had, but after some careful thought, he found it very hard to believe that anybody his mother had loved or cared about could ever be an enemy. Everything inside of him resisted the idea, as much as Chihiro was resisting the adults. Thus, it seemed that they were at an impasse. It seemed that this would be another one of those times where they went and did their own thing, except this time, Soichiro sensed that his defiance of her had definitely upset her more than usual.

Maybe he could cheer her up. It was still early and he knew she had not eaten yet. He thought about ordering something for her, but he was entirely too shy to pick up the phone. Public speaking of any kind was not his forte and usually his sister spoke for the both of them anyway, especially to strangers. And he did not want to subject whoever answered the phone to the sound of his sister's wrath. He could just call Mr. Gevanni, but that would make him feel even more awkward, considering they had just left from him and they were all supposedly going to work now. He didn't want to interrupt them. Chihiro had said that they were all detectives, so what they were doing was probably really important - more important than bringing them food, anyway.

He had only one option left - he would have to try to make something for her himself.

He gave one last sad look back at his sister where she played by her side of the bed and slunk off into the kitchen, looking around at the few things they had stocked in the pantry and refrigerator. Not much was there, although there was room for quite a lot. This was because of the arrangements with the restaurant downstairs and how Mr. Gevanni always brought them food, but a few staples had been stocked. He supposed this was to encourage them to eat more, or to at least encourage Chihiro to eat more, but so far it didn't seem to be working.

Well, what would sound good to Chihiro? Soichiro remembered how their grandmother had always baked them something on the weekends, and how their mother had always made them crepes for their birthday. That sounded good, not that he was particularly hungry himself at that moment, but knew Chihiro would like it.

But how to make them? He had watched his mother do it many times, but about all he could remember was that there were eggs and milk and fruit in them and that they burned easily. He could always pull up a recipe on his phone. That shouldn't be too difficult. With his sister's heavy playing in the background, Soichiro turned on his phone and accessed the internet. He did a quick search for a crepes recipe and went with the first one he saw, and after scouring the kitchen for all the ingredients, he got to work.

But it turned out that making crepes was a lot harder than he remembered it being. The mixture he made was just fine, but cooking it was a different thing altogether. It didn't seem to matter how much of the batter he poured into the pan or what temperature the stove top was on, the delicate little pancakes kept burning. It was so frustrating, and soon he found himself running out of batter, running out of chances to make a nice crepe for his sister.

It wasn't long before he felt his eyes stinging, though at first he thought it was from the little bit of smoke coming off the pan. He wiped his eyes on his sleeve and kept going, despite how the tears in his eyes were making it harder for him to continue. How had his mother done this so easily? She used to be able to spin out crepe after delicious, perfect crepe. His grandmother had done it even faster.

Soon, all he could think about was his grandmother and mother - mostly his mother - and realized that he was weeping, in spite of his best efforts not to. There wasn't anything he could do to stop it. He all at once realized that his sister had stopped playing and felt her presence nearby. She didn't try to touch him or say anything, but then she didn't have to. The fact was, he was supposed to be trying to cheer her up, not the other way around.

He knew how pathetic he must sound to Chihiro. Chihiro would never cry like this - not that she didn't cry, just that she could always regain control of herself much quicker and easier than Soichiro himself could. It was like she had some kind of switch or dial she could utilize to control her emotions at certain times, while he was always so full of emotions, he was constantly being shoved this way and that by them. He was just like all those kids at school said of him - he was a wimp and a crybaby and a coward and useless. He wasn't brave like his grandfather, or Matsuda, or Chihiro, or anyone else. He could never be brave. He was just a stupid and weak little boy, who ran and hid from bullies and cried over burnt crepes. Chihiro never hid from the bullies - she always confronted them, head on, unlike Soichiro himself, who had become well-acquainted with the insides of bathroom stalls and closets, who would rather face his teacher's looks of disapproval from being late to class than face even one taunt from one of the bullies.

And just thinking about all that made him cry even harder. He didn't want to go back to school and face the bullies again. He just wanted to go home and for everything to go back to normal. Why couldn't everything go back to normal? Why couldn't their mother just come back and get them? Why did they have to be here and why did they have to go back to school, where everyone was so mean to them? Why couldn't they just go stay with Matsuda? He would know what to do about the bullies. He would know how to make Chihiro's crepes. He would know how to bring back his mom. Matsuda was brave and he knew everything and he would know what to do, but now he could never talk to Matsuda ever again because his real dad was mean. Except Soichiro didn't really think he was mean, maybe a little mean, but he still couldn't accept the idea that his dad was _bad_.

None of this he was able to verbalize to his sister. He was only able to whimper, "No matter wh-what I d-do.. I can't s-s-stop them from burning. It's t-too.. too hard. Wh-why is everything so h-hard?"

Chihiro didn't say anything to him, but then she didn't have to.


	17. Chapter 17

**01/16/2018 - I decided to add more to this chapter - I added more from Near's flashback, and some from Chihiro's POV after that.**

 **I'd also like to take the time to ask that my readers to please leave feedback, if you have time. I really appreciate hearing what you think. Tell me what you like or don't like, and tell me what you'd like to see more of - if I can fit it into what I have planned out, I will try.**

 **Thank you for your continued support!**

* * *

The next couple weeks were relatively peaceful for Near, with the exception of Chihiro practicing her violin wherever she thought it would annoy the adults the most, which was usually right outside their command center. In all reality, it could hardly be called "practicing", because the real practicing took place in their room, where Near was only allowed to hear it by listening through the cameras. What took place outside his command center was done solely to disturb him, and so Near continued to respond by not responding - by allowing her to wear herself out until she left on her own. It was truthfully wearing him out too, and the rest of his team as well, based on how they all seemed to be popping more pills lately and how a large box of earplugs had appeared on Gevanni's workstation. He couldn't remember any time in his life when he had experienced quite as many headaches, but regardless of that, he refused to put in the earplugs. Eventually the girl would see that she was not disturbing him in the least (though she was) and would cease her puerile display.

Aside from that, the children would return home from school, on time as the rules stipulated, and after having their afternoon snack, they would get to their homework right away. They would work on it together until they were finished, and then they would either leave the room to explore the other rooms, or they would go about their own thing, but while still in each other's presence. True to Matsuda's word - however annoying it was - they really did hate being separated, even for a moment. If they were both awake, they were together. They studied together, they ate together, they played together, they slept together. They even took baths together, which Near knew was not necessarily uncommon in Japan, even if they they had not been as close to each other as they were. He knew, though, that they were coming to an age where that activity would stop as they would be wanting more privacy.

Well, they would soon be getting used to it at Wammy's House, at any rate - girls and boys did not room, much less bathe, together there. Near had not spoken to Roger in several weeks, but he intrinsically knew that not enough dust had settled yet for him to send the children there. Besides, aside from the shrieking that took place on a daily basis outside of his command center, the children's presence really was not too bad. Interferences were minimal, both the children and Near's covert operation were thriving, and he had already removed from his mind all the doubts he had previously felt in his decision. He didn't understand what all the fuss had been about from any of the other parties involved either, including Sayu - especially Sayu. He was fine, the children were fine, his team was fine. Everything was fine.

And so it was for several weeks, this routine, until one day the daily screeching outside their command center ceased, much to both the relief and the curiosity of the adults (with Rester and Gevanni expressing more relief, while Near and Lidner were erring on the side of curiosity). Most of everything seemed to be in order, the variation being that the girl had not moved on to tormenting everyone with her violin yet. This had become such a routine thing that Near was immediately suspicious. He checked the clock - 6:00 PM had come and gone and his daughter was nowhere to be seen with her insufferable violin. It was a Thursday - as the children had no after-school activities on this day, 6:00 PM was about the time they usually finished up with their schoolwork and moved on to more amusing activities.

This definitely roused Near's curiosity. He looked away from the casework he had open on one of his laptops and focused on the one he had solely dedicated to monitoring the children. He had surveillance on them up at all times, although he did not watch it continuously anymore. Upon observing the children, he first noticed that the girl was not practicing her violin, not even in her own room. She was instead sitting with her brother, idly watching while he was playing a game. They were sitting on opposite ends of the couch, instead of closer to each other as they usually did. The violin in question was nowhere near the girl, as Near would have expected, and was instead sitting on one of the tables across the room.

It was quite strange to Near indeed. Had they gotten into an argument? Near had never witnessed an argument of any kind between them before, but if he had to guess, he would say that Chihiro was stubborn enough to not be compliant in watching her brother's game-playing were they at odds with each other. No, something else was up. Why else would one of them be playing and the other not? As he continued to watch them, he noticed how Soichiro would steal small, worried glances over at his sister, who Near thought appeared to be depressed, or despondent at the least. She was leaning against the arm of the chair, her head propped up by the palm of her hand in the quintessential look of depression.

Near decided to dismiss it for the time being and went on with his work. No real harm was being done by this deviation. Perhaps she was merely feeling unwell for the evening, in which case he would have Lidner inquire as to her wellness later when she checked on them before bedtime. Later, though, when Lidner checked in on them, both of them behaved as expected by telling her everything was fine - that is, the boy said as much, while the girl refused a response, which was not at all abnormal coming from her. They went about their bedtime routine, brushing their teeth and such, and had lights out by 9:00 PM. Lidner reported to Near that nothing about either of the children seemed out of the ordinary, but Near was not 100% convinced, based on the fact that the girl's violin was still across the room, rather than right next to her side of the bed as it usually was.

At any rate, Near was still prepared to dismiss the irregularity as just that, until the next day when pretty much the same thing occurred; and over the weekend, when no practicing of any kind took place; and finally that following Monday, when Lidner received a call from Chihiro's violin instructor that she had not shown up for her lessons. Near listened to Lidner's side of the conversation and gathered that the girl had also skipped class the previous Friday, that these occurrences were the exception rather than the rule for her, and that the instructor herself was concerned about her student's sudden truant behavior. Lidner assured the woman that she would have a word with Chihiro about it and ended the call with a grim, albeit befuddled, expression. She then recounted the entire conversation to her boss. This did not offer any new clues as to his daughter's mysterious change in behavior, but it did beg the question - if she was skipping class, then where exactly was she going during these times?

Near decided to track the coordinate history of the mobile phone he had given her and discovered that she had never left the school on either last Friday or the present Monday. On the surface, this was somewhat reassuring, but it did not answer the deeper question as to what was going on. If the girl was going to skip her violin lessons, then why hang around at the school anyway? Near presumed she was with her brother, who stayed after school to help clean up classrooms and get a head start on his schoolwork on those days - the tracking on the boy's phone also proved as much - but again, why skip her extracurricular activities? It would have been very easy to simply chalk it all up to depression, which would make the most sense because she fit the bill perfectly - change in appetite, sleep disturbances, moodiness and mood swings, general discontent, and now an apparent loss of interest in hobbies.

But Near felt it was more than that. From what her instructor had relayed to Lidner over the phone, up until that last Friday, Chihiro had seemed to be in rather good spirits when it came to her lessons. Even if she expressed apathy over the rest of her schoolwork, the girl showed up to her violin lessons in a punctual manner and completed each lesson with flourish. In the instructor's own words, she "really put her heart into it, every day" and was, in fact, one of the instructor's favorite students, hence her genuine concern. Near could say that he completely agreed with the instructor's assessment, so to him it did not make sense that her sudden disinterest was due to depression - at least not on its own, seeing as his daughter was still clearly depressed.

With all of this, Near did come to his own conclusion about what was going on, but he wanted Lidner to confirm all of this for him. Although she appeared slightly perturbed by this request, she did not need to be told twice. After Near conveyed all his suspicions to her, she immediately left the room to confront the child.

* * *

Lidner really wished that Near had not designated her as the emergency contact for the children's school. Although it made the most sense for a number of reasons, some part of her still felt that Near should really be handling these calls himself. It wasn't like she could expect him to perform in any sort of parental social role - or any parental or any social role, for that matter - but it still was technically his responsibility. Then again, Near was _her_ responsibility, and by extension, so were the children. At least that explained part of why she was being put in charge of them to such a degree. Then again, she knew that a larger part of it was that she was actually putting herself in charge of the children - they plainly needed support and guidance, not just because Matsuda said so, but because it was obvious as day. It was obvious to everyone but Near, who was perhaps basing the children's independence in this situation on his own experiences. Well, Near was definitely not what Lidner would have considered to be the average for anything, so that was not exactly reassuring to her.

Which was why Lidner was finding herself attending to the matter herself and without any further prompting from anyone. She was determined to figure out what exactly was going on with the girl and how best to approach the situation. Near seemed to have a pretty clear idea of what it was, but in order to take action, both he and Lidner needed the proof. Needless to say, she would not be leaving without it.

When she approached the door to the children's room, she knocked lightly on the door before letting herself in. Thankfully, it was not locked this time, although she would have been able to let herself in either case. Upon entering the room, both children stopped what they were doing - their schoolwork - and looked at her with some unease. As they were usually left alone to complete their schoolwork around this time, her visit was out of the ordinary to them, too.

Lidner decided to cut right to the chase. "Do you want to tell me why you're skipping your after school activities, Chihiro?"

The girl looked mildly surprised by this, but she did not budge. "No," she said simply before bowing her head back to her schoolwork.

"All right," Lidner sighed, moving onto the boy, "Do _you_ want to tell me?"

The boy's only response was to offer her an apologetic tilt of lips and a small shake of his head. Of course he was going to cover for his sister - Lidner had expected as much.

She folded her arms. "Well, that creates a problem for us, because I am not leaving until I get an answer."

Chihiro let out a bored sigh, "If it's just an answer you want, then maybe it's because I'm not interested anymore."

"I seriously doubt that. You play for hours on end and relish in tormenting the rest of us while doing so."

"It got boring."

"I doubt that as well," Lidner said, earning a scoff and an eyeroll from the girl, but she pressed on. "Your instructor called to inform me that you missed class on Friday and you missed today as well, but I know you didn't leave the school. Why were you skipping class but still hanging around the school?"

A crease formed between girl's eyebrows. "How did you know I didn't leave the school?"

Seeing no harm in hinting to the children know that they could be tracked at any time, Lidner pulled her phone out of her pocket and waggled it lightly. She otherwise glossed right over the girl's question, "If it was to throw off suspicion by arriving home at the normal time, you could have left the school and gone anywhere, but you didn't. Why?"

Chihiro opened her mouth and then closed it. Obviously, she had not expected to be found out, but that did not mean she was going to divulge any answers so easily. Lidner knew she would have to push her further.

"Is it because you were afraid they were waiting for you after school?" This earned a sharp glare from the girl, but Lidner was not to be dissuaded. "The other kids at school. You wanted to make sure they weren't waiting around for you."

Again, Chihiro said nothing, only continued to scowl at her. The boy, on the other hand, looked guilty as sin and like he wanted to say something, but he instead was gnawing on his bottom lip and keeping quiet, presumably so as not to betray his sister.

"That's understandable, at least," the agent went on. "But what I need to understand is why you don't want to play your violin anymore."

The girl fired back, "Why, aren't you happy that I'm not?"

"Not particularly."

"What does it matter to you, anyway?"

"Because I know you haven't stopped playing just to give us all a break - it means something has happened to your violin."

"Nothing has happened to it," the girl sneered, rolling her eyes again.

"Then you won't mind my checking-.." Lidner said, and made a move in the direction of where the violin case was lying - on the same table upon which it had been lying since the last Thursday.

"Leave it!" the girl suddenly snapped, now on her feet and looking like she was ready to cut off Lidner's path towards the instrument.

"So, something _has_ happened to it, then."

"I already told you, nothing has happened to it," the girl growled. She paused briefly to consider, and then added more calmly, "I just don't like people touching it."

"Fair enough. But I know you and your brother are bullied at school, and I know that you suddenly aren't playing your violin anymore, so logic suggests-.."

"What makes you think we are bullied by anyone?" the girl said defiantly. She paused again, again seeming to consider something, and said, "Did Matsuda tell you that?"

"No. As you know, we have not been in touch with him."

The girl narrowed her eyes at her elder. "You started cutting Soichiro's sandwiches into triangles - how else would you know to do that?"

"Observation," Lidner said coolly, making a mental note to kill Gevanni later for the slip-up. "And you're deflecting, Chihiro. Cut the crap and tell me what happened."

"For the last time, nothing _happened_." Just like her father, Lidner fleetingly thought, insisting that nothing happened when something clearly has. Under other circumstances, she might have been amused, but this conversation was far from amusing.

It was time to make her final push, the one that would either break her or cause her to throw up a wall. "One of the other kids waited around for you after school on Thursday, took your violin, and broke it. That's why you haven't been playing - not because you don't want to, but because you can't."

While the boy appeared to be a mix between impressed, worried, and anxious, the girl was nothing but furious. "..Why don't you just shut up and leave me alone!" she yelled, her voice shaking in anger.

Lidner knew she had grilled the girl perhaps more than she had been grilled in her entire life up until that point, and now that she had the answers anyway, it was time to soften her approach, "I am not your enemy, Chihiro. None of us are."

"Yeah, well, you're not my mother either, so go away!" Again, just like her father. And like someone else she had once been at least somewhat close with, even if it had been one-sided.

"Is that really how you see the world, Chihiro? Your mother, and the rest are enemies?" she said, repeatedly using the girl's name in an effort to soften her as much as possible. "I'm sorry that no one has ever tried to be anything different to you. And you, Soichiro," she added, with a look at the boy, who was now hunched over in his chair and looking like he wanted to hide.

"Leave us alone!" Chihiro demanded. Lidner could tell that the girl was one step away from making a fight or flight decision, and she had no intention of pushing her that far. Her point had already been made.

"Very well," she conceded with a small inclination of her head. She had gotten what she came for and knew it was time to take her leave, but that didn't mean it felt right for her to leave them like this. Baby steps, she reminded herself, though they had taken a rather large leap today. Now was the time to back off, give them time to come to terms with everything, and then she could consider approaching them again later.

As she was leaving the room and shutting the door behind her, she heard another door slam from within the room. She let out a breath, knowing that this was still going to be an uphill battle even after all of that, and headed back.

* * *

"You were right," said Lidner, upon returning to the command center.

Near stopped in the middle of snapping some pieces of K-Nex together and glanced at the monitor. Chihiro had apparently locked herself in the bathroom, because Soichiro was sitting on the other side of the door, talking to her through it. He wasn't sure how to feel about what he was seeing or the fact that he was right, but what he did feel was a distinct feeling of discomfort. The feeling, he realized, was associated with something in the vestiges of his memory. It was dark, and he could hear someone muttering to him from the other side of a thin wall - a door.

That was all it was, but something about it terrified him. The unexpected assault on his senses jolted him enough that he momentarily lost all trains of thought. He managed to catch himself enough to not outwardly react aside from looking away from the monitor. He cast a casual glance at his team, hoping they had not noticed his odd behavior, and was relieved when none of them appeared to be concerned.

He didn't know what to do with what had just happened. He didn't want to acknowledge it. He didn't want to acknowledge either the feeling or the memory, and so he instead only acknowledged Lidner's confirmation with a quiet, "Hm," and went right back to what he had been doing.

* * *

Before she started school, Chihiro had never believed that she was anything special or different. She was aware of the fact that she seemed to understand things a lot quicker and easier than most adults in her life would give her credit for, much to her frustration, and when they did give her credit, it was only to remind her that she was supposed to be "too young" to understand such things, also to her frustration. She couldn't help that a lot of things were easy to figure out, even really grown-up things like what was shown on the news all the time and even things that went on between her mom and Matsuda (things even her mom didn't see, like how Chihiro knew Matsuda was going to ask her mom to marry him even before he asked Chihiro and her brother for permission. Really, he had made it so obvious by constantly fidgeting around in his pockets, asking her mom to make him bento box lunches all the time, and his hapless attempts at trying to covertly ask her mom what her ring size was, until he one day flat-out asked the children and Chihiro had already dug around in her mom's jewelry box and therefore had the size ready to give to him).

But other than those kinds of things, she believed that she was just the same as anyone else, that she was normal, that she would fit in.

Chihiro could remember quite clearly the day she learned that, for the first time, she was wrong.

It was her third day of school and everyone in her class was outside for recess, enjoying the warmth of the midday sun. She and Soichiro had been so shy around their peers at first, that in the beginning, neither one had noticed how said peers were quiet around them as well - avoidant, even. Chihiro figured it was because she and her brother were being _too_ shy and therefore were intimidating the others somehow. She and Soichiro agreed that best thing to do was to approach the others and extend the offer of friendship first, rather than waiting and being continually disappointed when no one showed them any interest.

And so, with no small amount of courage on their part, the twins approached a group of their peers and bravely, albeit politely, asked if they could join in on their game of rock, paper, scissors. While the entire group of children gave them a collective look of dislike, only one of the kids was kind enough to offer them a verbal response in the form of a very brusque, "No."

Chihiro had been so cut by that one word alone, she had been rendered into a shocked silence. Soichiro, however, always the braver of the two in Chihiro's opinion, had immediately inquired back, "But why not? We know how to play."

And the same, insolent child had snottily replied, "Because we don't want to play with you."

"B-But... why not?" Soichiro had stammered, looking more confused than hurt.

"Just go away!" one of the other kids finally piped up.

Stunned by the unexpected turn of events, the twins slunk off to regroup. Neither of them understood what they had done wrong until later after school, when they overheard the same kids talking among themselves. One of them said that she and Soichiro were a couple of weird "hafus", and it was quite clear that none of them wanted anything to do with Soichiro and herself. For their entire walk home, all Soichiro could say was "I don't understand". Chihiro said nothing, because she couldn't understand it either. She didn't know what a "hafu" was, but she inferred from her brief eavesdropping that it was not good. Apparently this meant that she and Soichiro were different somehow, although they didn't know how.

She felt a whirlwind of emotions blowing around inside of her, but mostly what she felt was shock, shock that she had been wrong about being normal, shock that this meant that not only was she wrong, but it meant that her peers hated her for reasons beyond the amount of comprehension she possessed at the age of 7. She could understand adult things, but this childish thing eluded her.

It continued to elude her over the course of the school year, as she learned from her peers that not only were she and her brother "hafus", but they were also "hafu bastards" and she had "hafu eyes". They never said anything about her brother's eyes - only hers - which made her realize even more just how different (wrong) she was. It wasn't until the following school year that she finally plucked up the courage to ask her mother what her classmates meant by their taunts. She could remember her mother explaining her split heritage to her and that she had inherited her gray eyes from her father. She could also remember her mother explaining that her father was absent from their lives, that he always would be, and that things were better for everyone that way. That was all her mother would tell her, again on the pretense that she was "too young" to understand anything further.

Except Chihiro didn't believe that it was better, not really. What would have been better was for her to have never been born at all. She thought this to herself every time she stared at herself in the mirror, every time she saw those gray eyes - her father's eyes - looking back at her, wondering why she had been cursed with them, cursed with something that earned her so much turmoil at school. She couldn't look away from them and she couldn't escape them, nor could she escape the taunts she received because of them - because of _him_ , this man who was supposed to be her real father, who had given her his eyes and then left. She resented those eyes, resented _him_ , every time she looked into the mirror. And she hated him. Oh, how she hated him. She had never met him, but she knew that she hated him - would _always_ hate him, no matter what.

She hated him even now, as she once again found herself staring into the mirror. This one was in her bathroom at the last place she wanted to be, with the last person she wanted to be with, being held captive against her will. Once again, she wished she could just tear out those eyes and replace them with _normal_ ones. Once again, she felt a profound, cold hatred spreading through her as she watched herself, watching herself. Only this time, it wasn't just her watching herself - _he_ was watching her, too, and through the exact same orbs of cloudy gray.

She couldn't escape from him - he was everywhere around her, in this very building, reflecting in her eyes, in her very DNA... inside her _head_. God, that was what frightened her the most, that he could see into her head somehow. It was Lidner who had confronted her, yes, but _Nate_ was the one had really dissected her and had sent the woman on his behalf. Chihiro knew this as much as she knew that he had only done it to prove a point - that she could not hide from him. As if she had not known that before, had not known that her entire life, only now she knew to what extent.

She had never felt so humiliated before, so stripped bare, so _violated_. Retreating into the bathroom had been her only option. She had to get away. Running and hiding was not something she often did, and this thought only amplified her anger. She would later come to recognize her reaction as one of panic, but in the moment, she could only process it as anger. Anger, and fear. Fear that Nate could read her mind; _anger_ that he could read her mind. No one had ever done that before - not even her own mother, certainly not on that level. Her mind was _hers_. He was _not_ allowed in there - _no one_ was, not even Soichiro. Her mind was a very private place. After everything else had been taken from her, her mind was all she had left. It was the one thing she could still feel proud of, and to have someone infiltrate it like it was nothing, to pick her apart piece by piece and lay it all out there for everyone to see...

She was so angry, before she really knew what she was doing, she was pushing everything off the bathroom counter in furious, rapid swipes. And she didn't stop there. She opened the medicine cabinet and threw out everything in there too - which was nothing more than a first aid kit, some nail clippers, and some small, travel-sized bottles of mouthwash, lotion, and other simple toiletries. She slammed the cabinet door so hard that it bounced back and she was surprised that it hadn't broken off its hinges.

Surprised and _angry_ that it hadn't broken, she stooped down and blindly grabbed at the first thing she could get her hands on to launch it at the mirror. If something here was going to break, it sure as hell wasn't going to be _her_. The object was cold and felt like metal, and as she clamped her fist around it, preparing to throw it, she felt something sharp bite into the palm of her right hand. She let out a cry that quickly turned into an angry growl and heaved the piece at the mirror as hard she could (she had only seconds to realize that she had grabbed the nail clippers), but even that was not enough to cause any damage. The mirror remained stubbornly unscathed, as did the nail clippers.

It was at this time that she was temporarily winded enough to realize that her rough treatment of the nail clippers had left a bloody, crescent-shaped cut in the palm of her hand. It was bleeding freely, although it was by no means a severe wound. It was then that she began to hear her brother's panicked pleas from the other side of the bathroom door, which she had locked behind her. He was wanting to know what was going on, crying for her to please let him in, over and over. She couldn't find the strength to answer him. In fact, as she blinked at the little wound on her hand (it seemed to be shaped like some kind of a sideways grin on an eyeless face, mocking her further) she found she had expended all of her strength and didn't - _couldn't_ \- do anything anymore, not right then.

She stared at the mess on the floor - miraculously, none of the bottles had broken open - and quietly moved around it. She wedged herself in between the toilet and the wall, feeling oddly protected there, and drew her knees up and felt her eyes grow warm against her will. By now, her hand was beginning to hurt, and for some reason - with all the commotion going on outside the bathroom door and everything crumbling down inside of herself - the only thing she could think about was that her violin instructor was going to be mad at her for not taking better care of her hands. Only no, she wasn't going to be mad, because Chihiro was never going back to that class again, because her violin - the one her uncle Matsuda, the man who _should_ have been her father, had given her - was broken beyond repair, broken like she was.


	18. Chapter 18

**Hello everyone. Sorry this took so long to get out. Rest assured that I do have the next chapter (and possibly the one after that) well under way and most of everything planned out. I don't want to give too much away, but things will be on the upswing very soon. :3**

 **Also - _very important_ \- because this is a work in progress and I sometimes think of things after the fact, I did add more onto the previous chapter. It is the last segment of Chapter 17, from Chihiro's POV.**

 **And last, I wanted to post about different character-inspired music. I would call them character themes, but they are not original pieces by me, so I can't _really_ call them that. Still, I wanted to share for those who might be interested and because I feel like music often gives insights to certain characters. :3**

 **For Soichiro - "Subwoofer Lullaby" by C418**

 **For Chihiro - "Theme from Love Will Ruin" by Neverending White Lights**

 **And, as a small teaser (if you want to call it that :P), for Near's successor, who you will meet much later on (yay!) - "Improbability Drive" by Divine Matrix**

 **Anyway, here is the next chapter. Hope you like it. Thanks again for reading! :)**

* * *

"Come on, kid, I got you your favorite - at least I think it's your favorite. ...Is it her favorite?"

Near watched as his son nodded quietly to Gevanni in response to his question. But even after being offered something as tempting as a her favorite meal, his daughter still was refusing to come out of the bathroom. None of them knew at that point what it might take to get her to come out - besides breaking down the door, anyway. Near had watched his children all night and the door to the bathroom had not once opened, not even after the boy had made a nest out of the blankets from the bed to sleep just outside the door. Not even after he had awakened every so often to knock on it gently and call to her through it. Not even when Near could hear the boy crying softly to himself.

Near could feel the presence of his other two agents behind him, both of them watching the monitors as closely as he was. Lidner was feeling guilty, though she didn't have to say as much. Her mannerisms all morning had given her away - the way she had asked first thing how the children were doing in addition to her fidgety behavior. Near really did not think that she had anything to feel guilty about. Not only had she just been following his orders and doing a bit of investigation, but it had all been necessary. There was no way the girl was ever going to approach them with something like that - much less approach them at all - and so the only way to get to the bottom of the issue was to force it out of her.

"Chihiro, come on out, now. You need to leave for school soon and you should at least eat before heading out," Gevanni went on in as kind a tone as he could, although Near could tell that he was at least mildly frustrated and about give up.

...Which is exactly what happened a moment later when Gevanni sighed, muttered "All righty then," and pulled out his phone to send off a text. Behind him, Near heard Lidner's phone go off, followed by a heavy sigh from the woman.

"Gevanni's throwing in the towel, so I guess that means it's someone else's turn," she said.

Nobody moved. Near could feel Lidner's eyes on him, and he guessed from her silence that she was expecting him to get up and do something about the situation - to approach the girl who had been forced back into a corner by his deductions. Well, there was no way that was going to happen. He handled things like this better by not actually handling them, by instead sending his team in and putting their social skills to use. He had no rapport with the girl (not that he had a real rapport with anyone) aside from their numerous stand-offs, and besides... he knew he would be unable to console her. These kinds of things were not his forte, he and his team alike had known that from the very beginning, and so it made more sense for them to handle it.

He knew that if he stayed quiet long enough, eventually one of his agents would crack and spare him the effort of further ignoring his female agent's hints.

Rester shifted in discomfort. "I suppose I could give it a try," he offered, much to Near's relief, and then he added, "Although if Gevanni had no luck, I don't see how any of us will."

"Well, someone has to try," Lidner insisted, again obviously directing her statement towards her boss. When again she received no response, she made a disgruntled noise and made to leave.

She paused when Near called softly after her, "Once you send the children on their way to school, I have an errand I will need for you to run for me, please."

Lidner lingered in the doorway for a moment, as if debating about whether or not she wanted to listen to him, before responding with a curt nod and brushing out of the room.

"Maybe they should be allowed to stay home from school today," Rester suggested once she was gone.

"For what reason?" Near asked softly, his hands busy with putting together the same K-Nex pieces from the night before, intent on building a replica of one of the cars he had seen his son driving in one of his video games.

The commander shrugged his massive shoulders, "Just seems like they've been through a lot, is all."

Near glanced at the monitor. Gevanni had given up and was standing around idly, apparently waiting on Lidner to arrive and relieve him. His son was also standing by quietly, looking completely dejected and lost. In spite of this, and although he could see his agent's point, Near did not believe that allowing the children to stay home would be appropriate. It did not do well to dwell on things, and the sooner the children learned this, the better. Not only that, but he did need them to leave so he could actually focus on his work and not have to spend all day watching them on the monitors.

"I do not believe that would benefit them," he finally answered, two pieces of K-Nex coming together with a light snap. "They need to adhere to their schedule to keep things as normal as possible."

"If you say so, sir," Rester said in resignation, although Near could tell that he had more to say. Near was glad that he didn't, because it meant that at least one of his agents was still willing to comply with him without questioning him too much. It seemed the other two were going rogue more often lately, particularly Lidner. He really wished he could still have Roger around for this exact reason. That, and Near couldn't deny that his former Watari had a way of handling wayward children. It was something he knew would be beneficial to the children when it came time to surrender them to the old caretaker.

No matter. Unruly children or not, Near knew he was still in charge, and he knew that the others knew that as well. Allowing small deviations where the children were concerned was not really that big of a deal for now, as long as they followed his stipulations in the end. When it came down to it, they would follow his orders and stick to the plan. They would all have to.

* * *

The moment she left the command center, Lidner had her phone out and was putting in one Roger Ruvie's phone number. It would be evening in Winchester, England at this time, but it shouldn't be too late-..

"When will you lot get it through your heads to not call me so late?"

"Roger, it's barely after dinnertime there," Lidner scowled. Damn, she had been hoping to catch him in a good mood, if there was such a thing for the eternally grouchy old man.

"Right, and for people in my advanced age, that is quite late."

"Fine, I apologize."

"No you don't - you obviously called me because you need something from me, not just to ask me how my latest bowel movement went, so get on with it."

Lidner pressed her lips together, simultaneously trying not to allow the mental image to blossom into existence and trying to stop herself from pointing out that she could have gotten to the point right away had he not insisted on griping about everything first. Instead of saying that, though, she said, "It's about the children."

"Near couldn't be bothered to call me himself to ask if everything was ready, could he? Not that it is, mind you."

"No. No, that's not it," she answered, remembering in that moment that even after all of this trouble, the kids' stay with them was still temporary. It didn't sit right with her, but then it was not up to her. Still, she had to do something. "You have experience dealing with difficult children..."

The woman could hear a low grumble come from the other side of the phone. "Well, so do you, Agent Lidner."

She could honestly see his point, but still: "Not in this way, and not with actual children."

"One of them held a gun to your head and the other has sent you on dangerous undercover missions, and you're telling me that dealing with children is more difficult?"

"It is, actually," she said. "Mello was predictable, to a degree - at least where it came to Near. And with Near - that's all just business where only my own safety is concerned. This is different. This is a situation involving the emotional well-being of two children whose mother was murdered less than six months ago."

A pause. "All right, just what is this dire situation with the children?"

"The girl has locked herself in the bathroom and won't come out."

Roger let out a chuckle, "Are you telling me that you can't predict, _to a degree_ , that a child is going to lock themself in the bathroom at some point?"

"As I said, among us, you have the most experience with children." At that, Roger let out another laugh, prompting a raised eyebrow from Lidner. "I'm sorry, is something about this funny, Roger?"

"There is a certain humor in the past repeating itself, yes."

"What do you mean? Don't tell me that Near locked himself in the bathroom as a child, too."

"No. It was his room closet," he stated matter-of-factly.

"Really."

"When Near was first brought to Wammy's House at the age of six, he was underweight, under-socialized, and had a severe speech delay. He would seek comfort by hiding away in his closet. Nobody could get him to come out for days. He wouldn't even come out to eat. And any time anyone tried to force him to come out, he would scream and throw a fit. Nothing we tried worked. I'd never seen anything like it before." Lidner was silent as she listened to the old man explain, feeling a wide chasm of curiosity about her boss' childhood open up like it never had before. "Only one person was able to eventually get him to come out of there. Do you know who that was?"

There was a beat of silence, which was the only clue Lidner needed.

"... _Mello_?" she breathed in disbelief, and then she caught herself. "You're joking."

"It is hard to believe."

"How did he get Near to come out, then?"

"We never found out. Mello refused to tell us how he had done it. Others felt that he was trying to protect Near, but I think he liked knowing something that the rest of us didn't."

Lidner almost smiled, but it never quite reached her lips. "That sounds like Mello, all right." She sighed. "But-... it's not like we can utilize him for his expertise now."

"I doubt he'd help you even if he was still alive," Roger pointed out dryly, but Lidner did not miss the small catch in his voice. Contemptuous old geezer or not, this man had helped raise the two successors of L and probably cared about them on some familial level.

"That's probably true," she agreed, suddenly feeling very tired.

"And I wouldn't bother asking Near about it either - I highly doubt he even remembers."

"Right..." she sighed, pressing her thumb and forefinger against the bridge of her nose. "So what would _you_ do, then?"

"I'd threaten to take something away from her."

"She's already lost so much - they both have. Are you sure that threatening them is really the best approach?"

"You asked me for my input, and so I am giving it to you. Everyone has a pressure point, Agent Lidner. Even children. Especially children. What is most important to the girl?"

"I'd say her violin, but it's kind of the reason why we're in this whole mess. Well, not the violin specifically, but these kids in her class." She paused, waiting for Roger to offer more of his opinion, and then realized she must have lost him in her ambiguity. "It's a long story."

"And I don't have all night, so..."

"The boy, then. Her brother."

"So threaten to have him taken away and she'll come out. I guarantee it."

"Threaten to have him taken away?" she echoed, feeling doubtful.

"It's either that or break down the door," Roger said with cool nonchalance, "Which are you more willing to do?"

* * *

Both Gevanni and the boy looked up as Lidner came striding into the room, in the midst of hanging up on Roger and slipping her phone back into her pocket. The dark-haired man supplied the young boy with a small, conciliatory grin, "Well, kid, I tried. I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help."

The child offered a minute nod in return, but otherwise he did not say anything nor did he show any true appreciation. Lidner felt something in her heart wilt at witnessing this action - or lack of action, rather. It looked like the boy had given up, as if a single night with his sister locked away from everybody - from him - had sent him all the way back to square one, to somewhere back before Lidner had even first met him in the director's office a few weeks ago. She had been there with Near when the director reported to him about the history and current state of the children prior to his claiming them. The director had explained everything about the children from the time they were brought to his orphanage to just a few days before he had received the order to release them to their biological father. Everything, including how the girl had shown nothing but contempt for both peers and staff alike; and how the boy had been mute ever since his arrival at the orphanage. This was what worried her the most - that the boy had returned to his elective mutism. While very little progress had been made with the girl (partially due to her own obstinate attitude, partially due to that of her father's, but mostly due to the failure of any of the adults to reach her, in Lidner's opinion) the boy had actually opened up to them quite a bit. He had grown more relaxed in their presence and had even begun to accept their hospitality. And now Lidner was faced with the very real worry that he had been unwittingly forced back into that previous state.

As Gevanni passed by her, he lowered his voice and said, "Good luck." And then he was gone, leaving her to pick up the pieces of two shattered children. She couldn't give up on them. She had to power through this.

She thought about what Roger said, and after a moment of hesitation, decided to put it gently into action.

"Soichiro, why don't you go ahead to school?" Lidner suggested, offering him a comforting smile.

Instead of accepting it, though, he looked down and shook his head.

"Don't worry about your sister. She'll catch up to you. But for now, I think you should get going to school before you're late."

Again, the boy shook his head.

"Would you like for me to walk to school with you instead, so you don't have to go alone?"

"I'm not going anywhere without Chihiro," he stated, plain and simple.

Lidner pressed her lips together for a moment, about to press on him further, but then she was relieved that he had said anything to her at all, even if it was to talk back to her. He hadn't reverted back to his mute state. Maybe there was still hope after all, at least for him.

She was torn between again inviting him to head off to school and caving in and allowing him to stay home for the day when she suddenly heard the lock working on the bathroom door. She and the boy both looked up in surprise to see the door swing open and the girl standing there, looking remarkably calm for someone who had just spent an entire night locked inside a bathroom. Her expression was one of practiced calm, but simmering just beneath it was something more volatile. Lidner knew better than to say anything to her in that moment, never mind her astonishment that Roger had been right.

His voice thin and wispy, Soichiro gasped, "Chihiro!" and ran over to his sister, stopping short of catching her in a hug when he must have realized that she probably didn't want one. He was right about that - Lidner could tell right away. There was a very tangible electric barrier surrounding her that clearly communicated that anyone who came too close would be fried on contact. The boy instead settled for quickly looking her up and down, as though he was expecting to find something amiss about her. He visibly relaxed once he saw that this wasn't the case. Lidner relaxed too for the same reason.

The girl cut a brief, sharp look at Lidner before settling on her brother. "I'll be ready to go in a minute," she said to him, and only him - because after that, she ignored Lidner's presence altogether.

That was okay, at least for now. Lidner truthfully had not known how to approach the girl just yet anyway. She would give it another day or so before doing that, she decided.

She took this opportunity to peek into the bathroom. She wasn't sure precisely why, but she had been expecting to find a mess for her to clean up. She was relieved to find that she was wrong. Everything appeared to be in its proper place. Lidner decided to count that as progress.

* * *

There was a brand new violin sitting on the dining room table when Chihiro got home from school with her brother. While she froze upon seeing it there, her brother ran over to it, shouting in excitement and seeming to forget that he had been upset with her for the entire day.

"Wow, Chihiro, look at that! A new violin!" he squeaked, as though she had not seen it too. Her jaw tensed in response. "That means you can go back to your lessons!"

But Chihiro didn't want anything to do with it. Her lip curled and she stared at it in disgust. What was this, some kind of peace offering? After dissecting her like some kind of specimen? So what if it came with a shiny, expensive-looking case that required the use of a combination lock to open it? So what if the violin itself was the most beautiful, elegant thing she had laid on eyes on? She bet should could play to the moon and back with it and it never once waver in its sound quality. And her fingers were itching to play, having been denied for almost a week now...

Still, she wasn't buying it. It was just another way for Nate to assert his authority over her. And it could never replace the one Matsuda had given her. And on top of that, Gevanni would be there soon with their tea and snacks, and there was no way in hell she was going to let him catch her showing even the remotest amount of interest in something that she was most definitely not interested in. He would report any activity of the sort back to his boss and that would give him, Nate, the upper hand again. Nope, there was no way that was going to happen, never again.

She turned up her nose at it and instead sat down at the other end of the table. She did not miss the uncomfortable look on her brother's face as she did so. As she was pulling out her homework to get started, her twin ventured cautiously, "Y-You don't want to play it?"

She shrugged, trying to appear calm, collected, and most importantly, disinterested. "Let's get our homework done and out of the way, and then we can play Gran Turismo together."

There was a space of silence in which her brother appeared doubtful, but then he quietly nodded and sat next to her with his own book bag. It seemed she had disappointed him, but that didn't really matter - at least he was talking to her and not worrying over her like he'd been doing the whole day. Despite her many attempts at cheering him up, he had remained quiet and anxious throughout most of the day. Had she really upset him that much by staying the night in the bathroom? She had not meant to hurt him - hurting her brother was the last thing in the world she ever wanted to do. But how could she ever possibly explain to him what had been going through her head? She didn't even want to think about it herself, much less share it with him, despite how they shared almost everything with each other. They had never really kept secrets from each other before, but was this really a secret? He had been there to see the whole thing, so surely he'd understand why she had to get away (hide) for a little while.

Well, she was never going to do that again, she decided right then and there. There would never be a need to, because she was never going to allow Nate to get to her again.


	19. Chapter 19

**Hello. I'd just like to reach out and say thank you to those who have stuck through everything so far. I'm sorry it's been a bit slow here in the middle, but it's all working towards something, I promise.**

 **Well, here we go. Hope you like it. Thank you!**

* * *

"That was Ms. Kuroda again. It seems Chihiro has skipped lessons again and she was wondering if she should be dropped from her class," Lidner informed Near with an exasperated sigh. "What do you plan to do about this, Near?"

Interesting. So his daughter was not going to accept his gift. It really was not so much of a gift as it was the only way Near could think to help her continue on with her studies like normal, but apparently that did not matter to her, either way. As he had been watching the monitors, he had known that she had not touched her new violin, so the teacher's phone call was not altogether surprising. He could not exactly say that his daughter's reaction was altogether surprising either, but it was indeed interesting. Interesting, and disappointing.

Near could not help but be reminded of the one and only time he had held himself back during an exam, to allow Mello to have the highest score. Since Mello was always going on and on about how Near was better than him at pretty much everything, Near figured that maybe this would help the older boy create some confidence in himself and stop badgering him about things he could not help. Mello had seen right through it, though, and of course had not taken kindly to the gesture, however much in kindness it had been made. Maybe kindness wasn't even the right word - Near had only done it thinking it would allow things to go back to normal, before Mello started bullying him and treating him like vermin. Instead, Mello had only seen it as Near once again trying to one-up him, trying to prove that he could always outpace him at his whim, thus placing them at even further odds with each other.

This had left Near feeling quite confused for the longest time. Was getting a better score than him not what Mello had wanted? If not, then what exactly could he do to make Mello not upset with him anymore? After much thought, it didn't seem there was anything he could do. It was a puzzle that could not be solved; a puzzle that had no resolution, like it had been built with some of the pieces missing. And so, after that, Near decided that not dwelling on the older boy's belligerence towards him was his best option. He turned his attention solely onto his own studies and going after the only thing that seemed to matter anymore - becoming the next L and gaining access to all the puzzles he could ever want. It hadn't been easy at first, but as time had gone on, Near had found it easier to focus on what he was doing rather than focusing on trying to please someone who simply flat-out refused to be pleased.

This time wasn't easy either, and this situation, although it shared some similarities to his past, was much different at the same time. It felt more important somehow. His daughter was shunning him and everything to do with him. But what exactly had he done to her to make her this way? Near understood that she blamed him for being absent from her life until this point (despite how that had not been his fault), and he also understood that because he had cut her off from Matsuda, she saw him as an enemy. He supposed he could accept that, not that he had much choice. But was she so willing to give up something she clearly enjoyed in an attempt to spite him? She really was not spiting anyone other than herself, in Near's opinion. The violin he had picked out for her was top of the line and had combination locks on it, so that her peers would never be able get into it and damage her instrument again. He had even had a tracking device installed inside the case, so that if it ever got stolen, they would be able to locate it and have it returned to her. All that aside, it really was in her best interest to continue her lessons, if for no other reason than to show her classmates that she could and would endure. Wasn't that what all her staunch independence was about?

Unexpected and uncomfortable memories aside, it left him with a sour feeling in his stomach. He had hoped that the mint tea Gevanni had provided him with would help alleviate the feeling, but it instead left him feeling more bothered than before. Why should this bother him so much? For one, he enjoyed hearing her play, even if it was only through the monitors. But more than that, he enjoyed seeing her peaceful and relaxed, something she only seemed to be while she played. He wanted her to be happy. He felt responsible for her happiness, for her emotional well-being, the same way he had felt a responsibility to Sayu, and why he had given her his phone number at her brother's funeral. It was hard for him to truly understand why - he only knew that he felt a certain responsibility to his daughter, to this one of two last pieces of someone he had once been very close to, closer than anyone else before or since.

But there was nothing he could do, just like there was nothing he could do about Mello growing to despise him, and just like there was nothing he do to make Sayu understand why he had not told her the truth about her brother. These contingencies continued to mystify him. So, what would he do about his daughter continuing to skip her violin lessons?

"Nothing."

"Nothing?" Lidner echoed, as if did not believe what he had said.

"None of us can force her to resume her lessons," he said. "If she does not wish to play, then I see no use in forcing her."

"I don't think it's that she doesn't wish to play. I think she is only acting out."

"That may be, but there is still no need to force her. I would suggest informing her instructor that the lessons will be henceforth discontinued."

"I don't think that's the right call," said Lidner, "I think she just needs some more time and then she'll get back into it."

Near wondered how much time she would need, and also briefly considered why it should matter if he was going to send her away to Wammy's House soon anyway. But he did not voice either of these concerns to Lidner. He instead did what he was best at doing at pretended not to hear her while he went on with business as usual.

Eventually, Lidner sighed (something she seemed to be doing a lot in his presence as of late), "Maybe it would help if we talked to her about this. Help her understand that this is foolish and that she is only hurting herself."

"If you say Chihiro needs more time, then I see little point in trying to talk to her now."

"Well, fine, then you stay here with Rester and Gevanni and fill me in later with what you find on the case. I'm going to talk to your daughter," she said. That all suited Near just fine. He was busy with their latest project, but he would be listening in on their conversation through the monitors, anyway. His curiosity demanded it. "If still nothing changes, then tomorrow I will call her instructor back and inform her that we are cancelling her lessons."

"All right," was all he said in return, his eyes having never left his computer screen.

The agent stood there for a moment, waiting to see if he had anything more to say (he did not), before whisking out of the room. Near turned to his other laptop to view the monitors.

* * *

Before going to see the kids, Lidner deviated and went to one of the storage closets on the floor of the command center, where a great deal of Near's toys were stored. She unlocked the double doors, pulled them open, and gazed upon the array of boxed-up puzzles and playthings. There was one thing in particular she was looking for and luckily it did not take long to find, as everything was carefully sorted and labelled for easy finding. She opened one of the boxes, extracted one of the multi-colored puzzle cubes, and closed everything back up again, smirking to herself as she did so.

She had a plan, one that ought to teach both Near and his daughter a lesson.

When she entered the kids' room, they both looked up in unison. The boy immediately looked back down at his homework, apparently worried that another altercation between his sister and the agent was imminent. Lidner had the feeling that this was a distinct possibility, but this was part of the other reason she had brought the cube with her.

Soichiro stole a nervous glance at his sister, but she was busy not answering Lidner's inquiry and was instead eyeing the Rubik's cube that she was currently shuffling in an off-handed manner. Lidner saw with some amusement the moment the girl figured out why she had brought it. It was amusing because Chihiro let out a vexed sigh and she looked like she wanted to plant her face on the desk hard enough to knock herself out. Either that, or she wanted to plant Lidner's face on the desk hard enough to knock her out instead. She figured that either would have sufficed for the girl at that point, but also was settled with the knowledge that neither would happen.

"Here," said Lidner with a friendly, disarming smile, handing over the small cube to the boy, who received it while blinking in confusion. "It's a puzzle. Go take it to your father while your sister and I talk. He'll show you how it works."

Lidner watched the boy cast an uncertain look over at his sister, plainly stuck between not wanting to disobey his elder and not wanting to leave his twin's side. The girl watched him back, and for a moment Lidner was worried that there was some unspoken agreement between the twins that they would not separate from each other, considering what had happened last time. But then Lidner thought, no, the girl was going to be more stubborn than ever now. Her pride had been hurt but it was well on the mend now, so there shouldn't be any worry about the girl locking herself in the bathroom again. Therefore, the boy had no need to worry.

After a moment, Chihiro let out another small sigh, gave an almost unnoticeable movement of her chin, and looked away. This seemed to act as some kind of permission given, for the boy finally muttered, "Okay...". He slowly made it his way for the door, casting one last apprehensive look at his sister before scampering off.

For a minute, neither Lidner nor the girl moved or said anything. And then Lidner hummed and made her way over to the windows. She peered out of them, smiling pleasantly, as she watched fat, wet snowflakes fall from the sky and swirl between the towering steel structures of man. Lidner had always loved snow, and there was nothing quite like watching its long descent from a superior vantage such as this. She spent a few minutes just watching the dance of snowfall and then she spoke softly into the silence, "Isn't it beautiful, the way the snow blows between the buildings? It's almost like living inside of a snow globe."

No answer came from the quiet room behind her, just the slight creak of the chair as Lidner caught sight of the girl tipping back in it so that only two legs were planted precariously on the floor. She was certainly trying her best to appear bored and disinterested in the agent's presence, but Lidner was not fooled. The girl was clearly uncomfortable and wanted her to leave.

She stole a glance at her phone when it chimed an alert. Perfect, everything was on schedule. She smiled, was quiet again for a couple minutes, and then continued, "Do you like snow, Chihiro?" she asked, but again received no response. "I used to play in the slush when I was a kid. You know, when the snow on the road and sidewalks gets a little wet, so when you step in it, it's like slush."

The girl pushed out another sigh and groused, "What is this, some kind of therapy session where we use metaphors about the weather to psychoanalyze each other?"

"If that's what you want this to be, then sure," she replied amiably.

"I thought you just wanted to come berate me some more for skipping class."

"I considered it, but after getting another call from your instructor today, I told her to cancel your lessons."

A look of surprise passed over the girl's face before settling back into its usual defensive look. A second later, Lidner stole another glance at her phone, this time to view the time. Chihiro grimaced.

"Did _he_ send you here to tell me that?"

"No. This is a talk just between us girls."

Chihiro sighed. "I already had that talk... with my _real_ mother," she said with a sharp look at the agent. It was clear that between the revelation (lie) that her lessons had been cancelled and the activity on Lidner's phone, she had no idea why the agent was there. This was good. The more Lidner could disarm the girl, the better this would all turn out. She hoped, anyway.

"Do you think I am trying to replace your mother, Chihiro?" she replied, unperturbed, and put her phone away.

"Aren't you?" she said, allowing her chair to fall back into place, the legs meeting the floor with a dull thump. Lidner was very much aware of the girl's sharp gaze upon her, sizing her up. "Woman in her forties. Experienced an early onset of menopause. Chose her career over having a family," she went on, as if checking off a list, and looked away briefly before once again pinning her with a decidedly pointed look, "Therefore developed a penchant for looking after people who can't look after themselves and decided that adopting an overgrown man-child was the next best thing."

"I thought you said you could look after yourself," she countered, amused in spite of the cruelty of the girl's blunt observations, true as they were.

The girl, on the other hand, did not take well to her well-aimed humor. She shot the agent a venomous glare but otherwise offered no response, perhaps because she had been robbed of one.

"Let's be fair, then. There isn't a soul alive or otherwise who could ever replace your mother," she said. The girl's jaw tightened. "But seeing as we are both here, whether either of us likes it or not, you are my responsibility and I'd-.."

"No," the girl interrupted, "I'm supposed to be Nate's responsibility."

"Well, he's my responsibility. Therefore, by extension, you are as well. That said, I'd like to work out a rapport with you. But I can't do that when you either ignore me or want to fight with me on everything I say."

"Then maybe you should just stop talking and leave me alone," said the girl with a derisive sniff.

"You know, it's funny - with as much as you obviously dislike being talked to and treated like a child, you continually act like one."

"Well, I _am_ a _child_ , unlike _someone else_ who doesn't have the excuse..." she said snidely, tipping her chair back a little again. She was fidgeting an awful lot, and from this Lidner could tell that the girl was nervous and becoming worked up again.

"No, actually, _you_ don't get to use that as an excuse for _your_ behavior. I know you're smarter than that. You know you're smarter than that."

"Are you saying that Nate is actually a child? Or are you saying that he is not smarter than that?"

Lidner felt anger stir within her in response to the girl's insult, but refused to let her hackles be raised any further than that. "Now, that's enough of that. There are a few things you need to be set straight on about your father." The child scoffed, but Lidner went on in spite of her flippant attitude, "First and foremost, you need to understand that he does not understand certain things the same way you and I might - relationships and emotions and certain social boundaries, for example."

The girl's mouth tilted into a nasty, sardonic, sneering grin, "Wow, how much do they pay you to be a detective who only points out the obvious?"

"You seem to think that anything he has said or done has been done _to you_ personally," she said, choosing to ignore the girl's continued hateful remarks, "It hasn't. Nothing he says is personal, although you might want to take it that way sometimes. I wouldn't be the first person to admit that I myself have wanted to throttle him a few times, and I won't be the last either. But the fact is, he does not express or understand emotions the way others do."

"You mean he actually has emotions?" the girl scoffed again, determined to spew nothing but vitriol towards the man in question. "It's kind of hard to tell when all he does is play with cards and toys all day."

"First of all, those cards and toys help him organize his thoughts and help him process information - the same way playing the violin helps you process things, and the same way Soichiro's games help him." The girl pressed her lips together in annoyance. "Second, he does more than 'play' all day. You aren't around to see it, but he helps solve dozens of difficult cases a month and has easily put more criminals behind bars than ten times the years you have been alive, so please remember to respect that fact."

"Dozens of cases... Dozens of cases, but not my mom's."

"It's not my place to discuss that at this time, and please don't change the subject. Lastly," she said, cutting off what was sure to be an outraged reply from Chihiro, "Of course he has emotions. He is just not..." Lidner paused, groping around for a more eloquent way of putting it, but ultimately failing, "...not good at expressing them. Give him a complex mathematical equation, and he'll solve it mentally within a matter of moments. Ask him to translate a foreign document, he'll be able to do so fluently in one of at least a dozen languages - and those are just the ones I have heard him speak. Give him a 5,000 piece puzzle and he'll have it put together within an hour. But ask him to sit down and talk with his kids? Clueless."

Chihiro appeared to be chewing on the inside of her cheek before deciding to say anything. "Then what was the point of taking us in the first place?"

"Do you think he wanted you two to spend who knows how long moving through the system before being thrown out on your own?"

"We wouldn't have been thrown out. Matsuda was going to adopt us."

"Do you really think he knew anything about Matsuda's intentions to adopt you before deciding to take you in himself?"

"Matsuda knew he had taken us."

"Probably because he got a call from the orphanage that you had been claimed by your biological father."

"Regardless... Nate listened in on our conversation before cutting us off from Matsuda, so he knew Matsuda wanted us. He still had the nerve to take us away from him and then lock us up and spy on us like we're prisoners or something. And you're expecting me to sympathize with him?"

"There you go again, thinking he has done all of this as a slight against you, or anyone else. He did not take you away from Matsuda - he was merely doing what he thought to be in your best interest. There is a lot you don't understand about what your father has been through since finding out about you and your brother. Even I can't say what all he has felt - it's not my place, and all any of us can do is guess. But I do know that he has put forth a huge amount of effort, more than I've ever seen, to ensure that you two are cared for to the best of his ability."

"Right, by sending his lackeys to do all the dirty work."

"I already told you, it's not that he doesn't want to get to know you, it's that he doesn't know how."

"And locking us up and spying on us?"

"Have you ever stopped to think that these measures - your phones and living in this building - have been taken not to lock you up or spy on you, but to protect you? To keep the two of you safe?"

Of course, Lidner thought, they didn't know anything about the cameras in their room - only about the tracking features on their phones - but Lidner had resigned herself to accepting that that was the only way her boss felt comfortable learning about his children, and therefore learning how to provide for them - at least until surrendering them to Wammy's House, but that was a whole other can of worms that Lidner dared not to dwell on. Chihiro, in the meantime, was looking away, her mouth pressed closed in resentment.

"If that's the case, then why aren't we allowed to go out?" she said at last.

"No one has ever said that you aren't allowed to go out. You are the one who has decided to see your situation as imprisonment and has therefore treated it that way."

"I see. So somehow this is all _my_ fault?"

"Nothing is anybody's fault, Chihiro. That's what I have been trying to explain to you this whole time. Everyone is misunderstanding each other, and it all stems from the fact that you do not understand certain things about your father, he is not very good at communicating, and you are therefore taking everything personally. Again, not anyone's fault. In fact, if there is anyone here to blame, it's me - for not taking the time to explain all of this sooner."

Lidner waited to see if the girl had anything to say to that. When she didn't, she went on, "I like to think that I understand your father very well, even though he has always been difficult to read. I also like to think that I understand you, at least reasonably well." One of Chihiro's eyebrows went up. "I've only known you for a short amount of time, but in that time I have learned what low esteem you have for yourself. But that low self-esteem has been paired with something else, something more damaging than you realize right now, and that is pride. It's okay to have pride in yourself, but you are placing your pride on top of everything else because of all that you have been through. I understand that, truly I do. But you need to learn when to let that pride go. That is what truly makes you an adult. Not your age, not your intellect, but the ability to move past your own pride and accept something as it is."

Chihiro had fallen back into silence again, this time refusing to even so much as look up at the agent. In the absence of a rebuttal, Lidner took this as her cue to continue. "I once knew someone a lot like you, Chihiro. Determined, foolhardy, stubborn as all hell, but more sensitive than he'd ever admit to. He took everything personally, and he refused to accept help when it was offered because he was so hellbent on proving himself. He was sad... but only because he chose to be." Lidner paused, feeling an uncomfortable tide of emotion surge inside of her. "I guess I would hate to see you end up that way, too," she finished, more softly that she had intended, but still it was something she felt had needed to be said.

The bout of silence continued on for several long minutes, in which Lidner's last words hung in the air like static electricity. After a period of time, Lidner let out a sad sigh. Maybe the girl was not going to budge on her aforementioned sense of pride. Or maybe Lidner had been too blunt with her. The silence went on for so long, Lidner had no choice but to believe that she had failed again, failed yet another troubled youth, and moved to leave. She pushed her chair back and stood, and as she began to turn away, she heard a very deliberate inquiry, "Who was he?"

Slowly, she turned back around, taking in the girl's expression. She seemed genuinely curious, but underneath that, there was something else. Perhaps it was doubt, either in herself or what Lidner had just revealed, and that could only be alleviated if Lidner abided by the girl's request and elaborated. Lidner hesitated at first, but then she remembered that she had opened that door first. To gain the girl's trust, she had to offer up something about herself first, of course. Quid pro quo.

Lidner resumed her seat and gave the girl a small, patient, understanding smile. "He was a friend." The girl blinked at her, beckoning her to continue with her quiet, attentive stare - a look she would have no doubt been chagrined to know she shared in common with her father. "We worked on a case together. I guess you could say we were partners, in some form or another."

"What case?" the girl asked without preamble.

"I can't tell you that," Lidner rebuffed gently, hopefully not in a way that sounded too aloof, although of course that particular detail (and all those therein contained) was not one she could ever share, especially with the children.

"And he died?"

"Yes. He did," Lidner said, realizing a hint of emotion had creeped into her voice. She still sometimes had nightmares about the wreckage, the fire...

Chihiro was quiet for a moment as her eyes fell onto the table, as if searching for something there. She didn't seem to find anything, though, because she then asked, "How did he die?"

Again, Lidner hesitated. She wasn't sure how much of this she should be sharing with the girl, not just for proprietary reasons but also due to her own discomfort. But she had to break through to her somehow, and this was the only way - she was sure of it. The girl must have felt that deciding to trust the agent was truly worth a lot of weight to be asking such personal questions in return.

Finally, the agent answered, "He was murdered. By Kira."

The girl's eyes widened slightly. "Was he bad?"

"No," said Lidner softly, forcing herself to take measured breaths. "But Kira thought he was."

The girl retracted her intense, interested gaze and momentarily fell back into herself. Or at least, Lidner hoped it was only momentary. Chihiro was so quiet that Lidner began to wonder if maybe she wouldn't say anything more, but then she spoke.

"They said Kira murdered my mother because she was a whore," she said so quietly, so faintly, that Lidner was briefly stunned. She was stunned both by the revelation and by the girl's change in demeanor. Had she finally broken through? Was the girl allowing her to see beyond the callus that had been worn onto her by life's circumstances?

"Who did?" she asked gently, but not without an edge of anger in her voice. Lidner had heard a lot of awful things in her life, but just thinking about someone saying that to the child in front of her, who was already hurting enough... It made her blood boil.

"These girls at school," the girl mumbled.

"You don't really believe that, do you?" Lidner probed, hoping it didn't push the girl back into herself.

"Of course not," she said with such indignation, Lidner felt bad for having the girl reopen this particular wound again. "My mom never even dated anyone, much less had sex with anyone, presumably not after Nate. She didn't even go on any dates with Matsuda." After seeing Lidner's astonished expression at her blunt explanation, the girl rolled her eyes and added, "What? I'm not stupid. I know how adult relationships work. Honestly..."

"All right," Lidner conceded.

"She spent all her time taking care of _us_ , especially after Grandma died. She never took the time to focus on herself... What right did they have to say such a horrible, untrue thing about my mother?" she huffed, and in that moment, Lidner was certain that if the girl could have, she would have breathed fire. In spite of that, she did not miss the small tremor in the girl's voice and resisted the urge to reach out to her, to offer her some form of physical comfort. She was afraid that if she did, though, it would crumble the girl's resolve.

Chihiro seemed to gather herself enough to continue, "It was so _wrong_... And something else - I don't even think Kira's even real. Or at least not the way people believe he is, like he's some all-powerful god or something. Well, if he is, then why did he just suddenly disappear? What kind of sense does that make? He's just like any other deity made up by primitive people trying to explain something they can't explain. But try getting that through their thick heads. It's like talking to a wall." With that statement, she flattened her lips together, creating a rather pouty, childish look. Lidner almost - _almost_ \- wanted to laugh. If their discussion had not been such a serious one, she might have felt loose enough to laugh. She had to admit that she was pretty impressed by the girl's assessment of Kira, though - she wasn't that far off the mark.

Instead of laughing, she said, "What did you say back to them?"

"Nothing."

"Chihiro... don't lie. You clearly said something back to them. Otherwise, we would not be sitting here having this conversation."

The girl looked moderately irritated at being called out, but she pressed on nonetheless. "I informed that moron Michiko that if Kira killed my mother for being a whore... then her mother was next."

Lidner's lips parted, wanting to say something, but she knew it would be better to just let the girl explain herself. And so she did.

"But she didn't take too kindly to that, of course," she went on bitterly, "Even though it's obvious. The woman has three different children, and none of them are her husband's, including Michiko. And of course nobody else has noticed." Here she let out a small, indignant scoff, as though this had been nothing more than an inconvenience to her, but it did not hide her genuine outrage over the entire event. "And just like an idiot, she couldn't accept the truth. She called me a liar and a bunch of other names, and then the next day..."

Lidner gave a single nod, thus excusing the girl from elaborating. Of course, she knew the rest of what had happened - this Michiko had waited for her after school the following day, had seized Chihiro's violin, and had broken it in revenge.

"What, aren't you going to say that what I did was wrong?"

"I take it you've been told that before."

"Yes. By my mom..." she said, trailing off.

"Well," said Lidner, knowing she was treading on a minefield here, "She wasn't wrong... but I'm not going to reprimand you for sticking up for yourself. I am, however, going to say that you need to be mindful of the potential consequences to your actions before you enact them, even if you feel justified. Revenge is almost never worth it."

"You know, it's stupid how people are so willing to be antagonistic and rude, but the moment it's turned back on them, suddenly _they_ are the ones who have been wronged."

"Believe me, I understand that completely. The world is unfortunately full of people like Michiko, and worse - and it always will be. That is a fact of life. But you can't control how other people act or how they treat you. The only thing you can control is yourself. And I think having control of oneself is more important, don't you?"

A creature as autonomous and prideful as Chihiro could only nod in mute agreement. Lidner offered the girl a small smile. She was genuinely delighted to have it returned.

"I'm glad we had this talk," she said, and decided to take a chance. "And now that we have talked, can I ask if you are willing to pick up your lessons again?"

The smile disappeared. "I thought you said they were cancelled."

"I did inform Ms. Kuroda earlier that we would be cancelling your lessons, but I'm sure a simple phone call back to her will reverse that," said Lidner. "If that is what you want, of course."

Chihiro opened her mouth to say something, closed it, opened it again, closed it again, before finally settling on a nondescript shrug. That was kind of disappointing, but then Lidner supposed she couldn't expect the girl to take so many big steps in one day, especially after being holed up inside of herself for so long.

"I understand you'll probably want some time to think about it," she said as she stood from the chair. "Just let me know what you decide. I will go and fetch your brother for you now."

As she turned to leave, the girl's eyes followed her, looking a little confused and lost and like the insecure child that she truly was, for once. As sad as the look was, it also gave Lidner a sense of hope - for the girl, for Near, and even a little for herself. Maybe she had not failed this one.


	20. Chapter 20

**And now for a little bit of a more light-hearted chapter. Small disclaimer, though - I am by no means an expert on Rubik's cubes, so if any information presented here is inaccurate, blame me, not Near. Anyway, please enjoy, thank you! :)**

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It wasn't often that one of Near's team out-smarted him, but whenever one of them did, he sincerely considered firing them. No, "out-smarting" was too strong of a word to describe it - they had simply become so adept at reading him throughout their years as a team, they could predict his behavior almost as well as he could predict theirs. Their growing ability to do this was what made him consider firing them - it was a bit disturbing to Near to have someone know him well enough to be able to fool him in any way, even on the tiniest level.

Such as the moment Lidner produced one of his Rubik's cubes to his son. Near would have liked to have been able say that there was no one else on his level - all those who had once been on his level were long since dead - but more and more, Lidner was proving him wrong. She seemed to have a very thorough understanding of the way he worked (not as well as Roger did, but well enough), and while most of the time this worked in his favor, when it came to things like this, he found himself cursing her.

He stared hard at the camera, watching his agent as she stood calmly by the windows, knowing that she knew what she had done. With his son coming to see him, there was no way Near was going to be able to watch and listen in on whatever it was Lidner had to say to his daughter. This pissed him off like no other, because he was infinitely curious about hearing the girl's side of the story directly from her, and not secondhand through his agent. Trusted as she was, Near knew that he would never get the full details from Lidner, and it was just as well the same coming from the girl. Ergo, the only way he would get to fully know what they had talked about was by viewing the recorded footage later that evening, after everyone else had gone to sleep. This bothered him, because he did not want to wait that long. And not only that, but he had the distinct feeling that if Lidner had gone through the trouble to do all this in the first place, then she most certainly had taken it a step further and had-...

"Near...?"

Near almost flinched at the sound of Rester's voice coming from right behind him. Had he really been that distracted? Damn Lidner...

"Yes, Commander?"

"Do we maybe need to take a break for now?"

Right, he and his team were in the middle of going over a rather large amount of data they had collected on a highly suspicious Kira worshiper who had emigrated from the United States to Japan two years ago. Since that time, the rate of copycat Kira murders and suicides in Japan had doubled, more than warranting further investigating from the team. But that was proving to be a challenge, what with all these incidents with the children taking his attention away from the project...

"It seems we do not have a choice in the matter either way, Commander," he said calmly, not wanting to give away just how distracted he had been, "Soichiro is on his way to see us." He moved his eyes from one of the hallway monitors by which the boy was passing, to one of the monitors in the children's room. Lidner was pulling out her phone just as she - and everyone else, Near included - received an alert that the elevator had been accessed. Out from the corner of his eye, he saw Rester and Gevanni glancing at their phones as well to check on said alert.

Damn Lidner again. She was biding her time until she knew that the boy had reached them. She most certainly knew what she had done. Damn her to hell and back for this...

Well, he didn't have very long to dwell on his annoyance over the issue, because it was only a few more minutes after that that the boy reached him.

"H-Hello," he said, quietly announcing his presence.

Gevanni was the first to respond - with a smile, of course, "Hey, kid. What do you need?"

"Um.. nothing, really," he said, shifting his weight from one leg to the other and clearly waiting to be invited in. Gevanni must have understood this, because he gestured for the boy to enter, which he did, slowly. "It's just that-.. Miss Lidner said I should come stay with you guys for a little while."

"Oh. Well, all right," said Gevanni, getting up from his workstation and shooting a glance at Near, which Near ignored. "Anything I can get you?"

"Um... No, thank you."

The agent smiled, "Are you sure?"

The boy nodded, but Near was not at all surprised when Gevanni abandoned his workstation, no doubt to retrieve a cart full of goodies for the boy anyway, leaving Near alone with him - well, and Rester, but he was making himself busy with their reports, thankfully.

Near eyed his shy son through his latest structure. The boy was fidgeting idly with the Rubik's cube that Lidner had given to him - the ruse to have him sent away - and gazing about the room, but he was otherwise making no move to ask Near to show him how it worked, as Lidner had instructed. Knowing what he did of his son's sheepish, unobtrusive nature and that he would never ask on his own, Near decided to prompt him, "You have one of my Rubik's cubes?"

The boy gave a slight start, blushed at being found out, and looked down at the cube he held in his hand. "Uh, yes. Miss Lidner said you would show me how it works. I-I didn't know it was yours, though."

Near stopped what he was doing with the K-Nex and held out a hand to receive the cube. Soichiro made his way over and placed the cube in his hand, and then suddenly asked, "Wow, did you make that?"

Near was busy turning the cube over in his hands, examining it, but he didn't have to look to know that his son was talking about the K-Nex car he was currently working on. "It's not finished," was his simple reply.

"That's so cool!" the boy exclaimed, his expression lighting up, bright and brilliant as the sun, "It looks just like the one in my game! How did you-.."

He had more to say, but stopped mid-sentence when he turned his attention back to Near and noticed that the cube - that moments ago had been in a complete scramble - was being handed back to him, now in its solved state. And then his expression lit up all over again.

"..Woooowwwww, that's _amazing_!" he all but squealed in massive excitement, looking over each side of the cube and seeing that each side was indeed uniform and therefore completed. "H-How did you do that?!"

"It's a simple matter of algorithms."

"Algorithms? What do you mean? That must have only taken you like 5 seconds to do!"

"4.19."

"That's so awesome! Can you do it again?"

Truthfully, Near did not quite understand his son's excitement over the solved Rubik's cube, as Near had been able to complete them from about as early on as he could remember, but something about the child's exuberance nonetheless made him want to show him again. He instructed his son to shuffle it up as best as he could, and again to the boy's amazement was able to complete the puzzle within a matter of seconds.

"That is-... That is _so coooooooool_!" the boy cheered all over again, seeming to be almost on the verge of tears from his delight. He plucked the cube from his father's hand and stared at it in astonishment, as though Near had just performed some kind of magic trick. "I've never seen anything like that before! That's so amazing!" Soichiro glanced up from the cube and Near happened to meet the boy's gaze. " _You're_ amazing, Dad!"

The boy's eyes were gleaming at him in such a wondrous way, Near all at once felt the urge to hide behind one of his towers. The only other person who had ever beheld him in such reverence was the boy's mother, and although the child had his uncle's eyes, Near could see so much more of _her_ in them.

It was too painful. The moment of splendor forgotten, Near turned away from him, intent on going back to the K-Nex. But then the boy was shuffling the cube and handing it back to him and asking him to solve it again.

"I have already done it twice."

"Oh... Okay... Sorry..." the boy murmured, his expression dimming, like a large cloud had passed in front of the sun, blocking out its golden beams.

Even though he couldn't say exactly why, Near hated seeing this. He had been the cause of that frown, however unintentional. On one hand, he honestly wanted the boy to leave. He wanted him to leave and take that smile with him - to take all of his (Near's) memories of Sayu with him. Sayu and her warm smile, her smile that she had once upon a time shown to him despite all his anti-social quirks. Her smile that he had dared to hope she had shown _only_ to him. That hope had died long ago, and had especially been snuffed out along with all his discoveries over the last couple months. She had shown that smile to at least one other person, the same person who was responsible for the demise of their relationship, no less.

And now here it was, happening again, only now everything was in reverse. Here, Matsuda, the malefactor, had received his son's smiles first - he had received them, when it should have been Near. Matsuda had also received Chihiro's respect first, respect that she rationed out so delicately, Near knew he would never see it simply by virtue of his forced absenteeism for the first decade of her life.

Something about all of this almost made Near want to take out his frustration on the boy - the boy and his generous smiles. Push him away so Near wouldn't have to see any of it. But none of that was the boy's fault, just as none of it was Near's. It would be unfair to treat the boy unkindly because of something his mother and prospective step-father had done. It was just that.. he didn't know how to deal with something that caused him so much pain and joy at the same time. How could anyone deal with that much conflicting emotion? He felt like he was the Rubik's cube in its scrambled state, only this one had no algorithms, no straight-forward processes that would bring it to its solved state. It would be much easier for him to undermine Lidner - as she had undermined him - and send the boy back to her and let her deal with it. He didn't want to deal with any of this, but then his son was still frowning and there was some unknown part of him that was shouting out to him that he should at least deal with _that_.

"Perhaps you could give it a try, instead," he suggested softly.

"But-... I didn't get to see how you did it - you went so fast."

"I did say before that it involves algorithms."

A delicate pair of pink roses bloomed on the boy's cheeks. Seeing this, Near realized that perhaps he had been too blunt and made to amend his previous statement, but the boy beat him to it, "Yeah, but... I-I don't really know what that means. Is that like when you solve a math problem?"

"In a way. It's a set of rules you follow to get an answer."

"Okay... I kind of understand. But how does that make you solve a puzzle like that?"

Near's mind went off on all sorts of long, branching explanations that would likely have looked like a spider's web had they been arranged in any sort of visual manner. And, just as likely, they would have confused the child, who Near knew had more simple, linear thoughts. It made more sense to show him for this reason, and also because Near had learned that his son was more of a visual learner.

"Perhaps it is best if I show you."

Soichiro chirped, "Okay, yeah!" and plopped himself down right next to Near - too close for comfort, really, but Near was not about to ask him to move away either. It seemed that the cloud had moved out of the way and the boy's fluster forgotten. "But-... don't go so fast this time, even though it's the coolest thing I've ever seen."

"First you need to understand all the terms of operating the cube. It's easier to understand when it's in its completed state, so I'm afraid I'll have to solve it one more time for you. Here," Near said as he unscrambled the cube for a third a time, earning another wide grin from the boy. He glanced at the child, who was waiting patiently for him to explain further, and then back to the cube. "This front piece here is, of course, called the front side," he said while pointing. He continued to point as he went along, "Then there's the left side; the right side; the top, or up, side; and then finally, the bottom, or down, side."

"That's not so hard to remember. Up, down, left, right, front - like the buttons on my game controller," the boy commented, elated by the simple steps so far.

"Then there are directions for turning a side - there is clockwise for a right motion and counter-clockwise for a left motion. Left is commonly referred to as 'inverted'."

"Why?"

"Because of how it is notated in an algorithm."

"Um.. I'm not sure I understand that part. Can you show me?"

Near paused. He would need to write it down, but he currently had no pen and paper at his disposal, as Rester had collected everything upon the boy's appearance and taken it back to his own workstation. He turned to ask Rester to return some of the items to him, but it seemed his agent was not quite as focused on his work as Near presumed he was, because the man was already at his side with a blank notepad and pen in hand. With a small smirk at his lips, Commander Rester stooped, said "Here", and delivered the items to the detective before returning to his work.

"Left, or 'inverted', is notated by a mark like this," he went on without missing a beat, drawing a lowercase English letter _i_ upon the notepad. "So if I were to tell you the next step of the algorithm was L inverted, you would then move the cube like this." Near demonstrated by turning the left side of the cube counter-clockwise. "And it would likewise be indicated by the move notation 'Li', as so," he said as he wrote down said notation.

"I think I understand. It's like the buttons you push in a certain order to get a combo move in a fighting game."

Now, Near did not have much experience with video games, save for the small bit of knowledge he had unwittingly gleaned from Mello's friend Matt in passing and from watching his son play, but he smirked nonetheless, "You could say that, if that's what makes it easier for you to remember."

The boy smirked - or as close as he could get to a smirk, which in reality was more of friendly little smile - in return, and the small exchange was so natural, Near felt some of the tension ease out of him, almost as if it had never been there at all, "So what are the other buttons-.. I mean steps-..."

"Notations."

"..- _notations_ in the algorithm?"

"There are actually at least eight algorithms you will need to memorize."

"Eight?!" the boy exclaimed in abrupt mortification as Near began writing down the move notations.

"And sometimes you will need to repeat each one multiple times to get each layer solved."

"Multiple times?!"

"Right."

"But how do you remember all that?!"

Near couldn't really explain how it was he remembered it all, or how it was he knew how to do it in the first place, but he did spend the next ten or so minutes writing down the notations and explaining where each of them came into play. He then instructed the boy to give it a try and helped guide him through solving the first layer. The pair became so engrossed in this task, they neglected to hear the return of Gevanni, who left the food cart sitting nearby, which was also neglected. Their borderline excitable chatter continued on even after that, until a little while later when Lidner returned.

Just as Near was glancing up to see Lidner's unmistakably positive expression, the boy was dropping the cube and clambering to his feet, his relaxed, friendly demeanor all at once abandoned and quickly replaced with the typical anxiety that seemed to take a forefront whenever anything regarding his sister was involved.

"Chihiro-.." he started, only to be interrupted by a smiling Lidner.

"She is fine, Soichiro. We just had a talk between us girls."

The boy paled, glanced at Near, and then blushed. Near was certain there was some subtext in there that he was missing, and he might have considered asking about it were it not for the fact that he knew that Lidner had gone to talk to the girl about skipping her lessons. Of course Near knew that Lidner was only trying to be secretive, but then what had caused his son's embarrassed reaction?

"Not that kind of talk," Lidner supplied, upon noticing the boy's expression. That was still most unhelpful, but Near decided to let it go at any rate. After no one said anything, she added, "There were no locked bathrooms this time either, I promise," which provided significantly more information than her previous statement. Either the talk had gone exceedingly well, or Lidner had taken the bathroom door off its hinges, thus preventing it from being able to be used as a barracade. Near highly doubted that the latter was the case and so became even more curious about their talk.

The boy did not appear to be so convinced, however. "I-I'm sorry," he said to Near and immediately made to leave, without any need for prompting.

Although he was admittedly disappointed by the abrupt end to their conference, Near understood his son's urgent desire to get back to his twin. They had been together ever since - and before - their birth, and so were loyal to each other first above all others. That only made sense. They would have a long way to go yet before establishing their own identities, or at least before willingly setting themselves apart from one another. Still-..

"Soichiro," he found himself calling out after his son. The boy paused and looked back at him. Near picked up the half-solved Rubik's cube along with the inscribed move notations and held it out to the boy. "Be sure to let me know once you have solved it."

The boy hesitated for only a moment before going back and accepting the cube and the paper. A tiny smile shined through his otherwise distressed features. "Okay, I will, Dad," he agreed, and then hurried off.

"Sorry to have interrupted," said Lidner once the boy left the room. "So, what did you guys find on the case? Anything noteworthy?"

The two male agents exchanged a look, while Near made a point of inspecting his K-Nex car for any faults in its design. Of course they didn't get any work done while she was gone, surely Lidner would know that. She was only bringing it up to be obnoxious at this point, so Near did not feel the least bit inclined to respond to her himself. Besides, one of his agents would answer her momentarily anyway and then they could all get back on task.

"Yes, actually, now that you mention it," said Gevanni a tone that was far too serious for him to actually be serious. "We all learned that by making the moves Right Inverted, Down Inverted, Right, and Down six times in a row on a Rubik's cube, you can bring it back into its original state."

Several hours later, after his team and his children had all gone to bed, Near was pulling up the recorded CCTV footage of both in and around the building. He navigated the folders on the drive and when he came to the correct one, the one where the footage from that afternoon should be-...

It was gone. After some brief research, Near discovered that the blonde agent had turned off the recording feature for the cameras in the children's room at some point that afternoon while Near had been busy with other things.

Oh yes. Near was most definitely going to fire her.


	21. Chapter 21

**Another chapter, woo and yay! I feel like I've been more on a roll lately - let's hope I can keep on it. Sorry if there are any typos in this one - I decided to stay up late to finish this, so I'll go over it again tomorrow and fix any mistakes.**

 **If you're one who likes to listen to music while reading, to put you into a certain mood, then when you get to the part after the line break, I would recommend listening to "Love & Loss" by Mattia Cupelli. I think it really sets the mood for this one.**

 **Also, thank you to those who have left feedback. I really can't say enough how much I appreciate it.**

 **Anyway, hope you enjoy this one. :3**

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Chihiro's thoughts were in a complete and utter tizzy. What had just happened? Had she really opened herself up and lain herself bare like that? Some part of her was in a panic and was desperately wishing she could take it all back. Was everything going to change now? Were Nate, Lidner, and their cohorts now going to gather behind closed doors and discuss what she and Lidner had talked about? Were they going to pat each other on the back for a job well done and keep an eye on her for further "improvements" in her attitude and behavior? The same part of her that was in a panic was quite busy pacing back and forth, ranting and raving about how there was no way in hell they were going to get to her, no way they were going to use this against her, no way they were going to subdue and groom her like some ignorant little obedient child who would sit down with them for family supper and card games and whatever domestic crap they had in mind.

But the natural progression of her conversation with Lidner had taken her to someplace she never would have dreamed of going with anyone, much less with this woman who considered herself her father's caretaker - and hers as well, apparently. At that thought, that panicked little voice inside of her began going on a lengthy diatribe about how she didn't need anyone's help in any form and how they could take it all and stuff it into whichever of their orifices were not currently crammed with their own bullshit.

There was some other part of her that was trying to speak more rationally to her, explaining that this could not have gone on forever, at some point something would have given and it most likely would have been her anyway, seeing as she was already broken, and was it so bad to let someone see that, and why did this part of her sound so much like her brother?

And then that panicked voice was back to exclaiming that none of them had any right to any of that, none of them were privy to her most intimate thoughts and feelings, and if any of them thought they could siphon this information out of her and use it to pin her down somehow, they had another thing coming to them. This "other thing" would most likely come in the form of that stupid, beautiful new violin being bashed to smithereens, but not before being used as a battering ram against Nate's stupid fortress of stupid cards, wiping that stupid, smug look off his stupid face.

 _What smug look?_ the other voice contended. True, now that Chihiro thought about it, she had never seen her strange, ghost-like father appear to be the least bit smug. In fact, now that she was being forced to describe it to herself, she had only seen him appear to be vacant. The most emotion she had ever seen from him was emotion she herself had evoked on her first night in their new, so-called home, when she she knocked down his sprawling metropolis of cards. That had been the very satisfying look of shock, and Chihiro was the one who had been smug in that instance.

Still, he had deserved it, came the other voice again, which had shifted from panic to bitter anger at some point, Chihiro passively realized. He had deserved it because he had dared to try and put her into a box - _his_ box. It was the same feeling she had whenever she was confronted with a decision involving a bully. Her first and foremost response was always to strike back - strike fast, strike hard, strike where it would hurt the most, and gods be damned of the consequences. She was quite proficient at picking out the little insecurities that the bullies, without even realizing it, gave away during their time together in the classroom. She equally proficient at fashioning these insecurities into fiendish weapons and using them to flay her opponents, gutting them with their own nuances.

But now that was precisely how she felt - gutted. She felt like a tiny little kitten, hissing out its fury and extending its miniature, needle-like claws, ready to deal a blow to the giant hands that dared to mess with her, but all the same deemed defenseless by these condescending and supposedly superior beings. How exactly was she supposed to feel about this, about the tables being turned on her and having even her tiny kitten claws taken away? How exactly was she supposed to feel, knowing that everything Lidner had said made sense, while at the same time feeling outraged by the sheer simple truth of it all?

She couldn't help but think that this would all be so much easier to handle, so much easier for her to figure out, if only she could play the violin right then. Just the physical motions themselves would be enough to bring everything into a sharper focus, simmer down all of her conflicting thoughts and emotions and straighten them out so that they all coexisted and made sense, so that everything blended together into one, long, harmonious ensemble.

If she had had more time to think about it, in all honesty, she might have broken down and at least tuned the instrument, do something - _anything_ \- to soothe her internal maelstrom, but after what felt like only minutes after the departure of Lidner, her brother was reappearing on the scene, carrying with him not only the Rubik's cube from earlier (now partially solved, she noted) but a panicked look of his own. Chihiro had only seconds to realize that it _had_ only been a few minutes since Lidner had left before her twin was approaching her, his eyes blinking at her in both worry and confusion.

Oh, she realized, he must be perplexed by her overall calm demeanor. He must have been expecting her to be pacing back and forth furiously (like the voice in her head had been doing only moments before) or to otherwise be locked in the bathroom again. She really did regret having done that, but she was mature enough to realize that perhaps at least some good had come of it - she had forged some sort of camaraderie with one of the adults and she had gotten a new violin out of it... not that she was the least bit interested in cooperating with them _or_ playing the new instrument, mind you.

Soichiro's worry was written all over his face. She did not want him to worry over her like this anymore, so she took the inclination out of his hands and answered him before he could even work up the courage to ask.

"I'm all right," she said evenly, wondering if everything really was all right. No, of course not everything was all right - aside from the messed-up situation she was currently in, her mother was still dead, her murderer was still at large, and Lidner had provided no clues as to the progress of her case. But, as the agent had said, it was not her place to discuss it at "that" time, not that it was not her place to discuss it at _any_ time - so that meant that it was something that could be discussed at a _later_ time.

And speaking of which, _now_ was not the time for her mind to be gluing itself onto such things, not when her brother was still clearly unconvinced of her being "all right" - his lips were still pressed together in bemusement and his eyes continued to reflect concern. Her eyes, to remedy this, shifted away from his and made a pointed look at the puzzle cube he was still clutching tightly.

"Did you do that by yourself?" she asked, nodding her head at the cube for emphasis. She already knew the answer, but she needed to hear him talk - to get her mind off of everything.

Soichiro blinked at her, coming partially out of his worried stupor, and glanced at the cube in question. His face turned a slight shade of pink, but he still did not appear to be convinced of her calm. He could read her so well, and she really was okay with that coming from him, but she could read him just as well and she hated to have him worry so much. She wished she knew how to take it away, but trying to get her brother to stop worrying all the time was like trying to keep her mouth shut whenever one of the school bullies was going off on her.

At any rate, once he realized that she did not want to talk about what had happened during his absence and that she therefore _must_ be okay, Soichiro walked over and sat awkwardly in the chair across from her at the table where they usually did their homework. He placed the cube on the table along with a piece of paper that had a bunch of English letters written on it.

"I didn't do it by myself, no," he finally answered, having accepted that he would get an explanation later - and he would, Chihiro conveyed with a quick, apologetic look into his copper-brown eyes, which he accepted and which resulted in his relaxing significantly. "Dad showed me how to do it," he said with a little smile, "He said you use these algorithms to solve it."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. But-.. We don't have to talk about that right now."

"No, go ahead."

"We can play a game or do something else instead."

"..If you want to."

"What do _you_ want to do?" Soichiro said, shrugging a moment later when Chihiro quirked an eyebrow at him. He wanted to work more on the puzzle cube - it was clear to Chihiro that before rushing back to check on her, he had been enjoying his time with Nate - but he was not about to do it in front of her and risk upsetting her. Trying to push him any further would only succeed in more shrugged shoulders and awkward, furtive glances at her, which was not what she wanted at the moment for either of them.

Chihiro conceded, "Let's play a game then."

"Okay."

He had relaxed a little more, but underneath that he was still worked up - perhaps as much as Chihiro herself was worked up - and wanted to do something that would take both their minds off of things - off of Lidner and Nate, in particular. So she agreed to play whichever game he chose, until Gevanni arrived with their dinner, and then some more after dinner, all the way through to bed time. There was one particular adventure-type game they liked to play together, and they made quite a bit of progress through the game's extensive map before they decided to turn in together.

After light's out, as the pair lay with their backs pressed together, Chihiro felt that little panicked, angry voice come back, whispering to her in the darkness that come morning, everything would be back to the way it was before. She knew without a doubt that some part of her - a _large_ part of her - wanted everything to go back to before she had Lidner had talked. She wasn't exactly sure why, just that everything seemed much simpler that way - a lot simpler than trying to navigate all these confusing thoughts that had resulted, anyway.

All of this kept her awake for much longer than it normally took for her to fall asleep. But eventually she did begin to drift off, the last skittering remnants off her thoughts fleetingly realizing that her brother, who always fell asleep first, was still wide awake.

* * *

The next day at school was mercifully uneventful for the most part. She and Soichiro were both quieter than usual, which was quite a feat considering both of them hardly said anything to anyone outside of each other, save to answer their teacher's questions when called on during class. One might have thought that they were upset with each other, but then none of their peers seemed to notice or care how they were feeling about anything, much less towards each other, unless it was to get an adverse (or favorable, depending on who was looking at it) reaction from them by poking fun. This was all fine and dandy with Chihiro, and her brother had also at some point accepted (preferred, even) this negligence from their classmates. It meant, at least, that they were being left alone for the time being. Aside from all that, their somber mood was really the result of the ceaseless thoughts from the day before running around in both of their heads, but both somehow instinctively knew that that would soon been reconciled.

Things remained this way all the way up until the end of the day, when Chihiro had to use the restroom before walking home with her brother. Michiko and a few of her friends apparently decided that standing around outside of the bathroom stall and giggling while Chihiro relieved herself was a creative use of their time, which was really pathetic on their part, Chihiro thought. Michiko kept asking about how her violin lessons were going and Chihiro miraculously bit her tongue, although she almost asked Michiko, in return, if she had figured out who her real father was yet. She instead quietly made her way around the group of chuckling cretins, washed her hands, and met her brother out in the hallway. The other girls took this as a victory, for they continued to make jokes at her expense, which brought her blood to a simmer. She truthfully wasn't sure if she felt proud of herself for ignoring them, or disappointed in herself for letting them get away with their taunts, but her brother gave her an encouraging little smile once she exited the restroom. He must have heard their sneering voices from within, but true to his nature, he said nothing about it and together they made their way out into the cool, late-January air. After feeling the heat of rage bubbling under her skin, the cold air felt nice.

While some things like a few parked cars and bushes were still blanketed in virgin, white snow, most everything else had turned into that gray, slushy gunk that always followed a heavy snowfall, filth that washed off from the cars and other street vehicles as they passed along the wet avenues. The twins walked along quietly, listening to the sloshing noises of cars, trucks, and buses running through this gunk. Chihiro thought of how Lidner had said that she used to play in the slush as a kid. She stepped in some herself, watched as it flew out in all directions, and realized that she should probably go ahead and use this time to fill her brother in on what her talk with Lidner had been about. And to see if she could get some things clarified for herself.

"Hey," she said, breaking the silence with a billowing puff of thin, wispy water vapors that escaped her parted lips and quickly dissipated.

"Hey," Soichiro said in return, exhaling a little cloud of his own.

"You want to know what Lidner said to me yesterday?"

"Sure," he replied conversationally, but really that was his way of saying that, although he was interested, she did not have to continue if she did not truly want to.

But she did. "She said that I've misunderstood Nate and his intentions. That he doesn't really mean to keep us locked up and that he doesn't mean any of this to be rude. That he does want to get to know us, but that he doesn't know how to."

"Yeah?"

Chihiro wished he would say more, because this was awkward as all hell for her, but he seemed to be more intent on listening to her at the moment.

"But I don't know if I really believe her or not. All of this-..." She kicked a small pile of snow and sighed. "Why do _you_ trust him?"

"Me?" he asked in return, in a way that said that he knew what Chihiro was referring to, but that he wanted a confirmation before committing to an answer. He was always second-guessing himself and Chihiro wished he would be a bit more confident, but then she understood it. Besides, it wasn't like she was feeling exactly confident herself at the moment - or much at all, anymore - so she obliged him, as always.

"Yes. Why do you like him? Why do you trust him?"

Soichiro shrugged, his eyes settling their walk instead of on her. "I don't know," he muttered.

"You do know, though," she prodded gently. His eyes moved back to hers and he shrugged again. "Please tell me." But Soichiro pressed his lips together and glanced away again. He was obviously afraid of upsetting her. "I promise I won't get upset. I honestly want to know your thoughts. Contrary to what you might believe, I can't actually read your mind," she said with a small, light-hearted smile.

"I think you just did," he said with a little smile of his own.

"I might have."

"I don't know. If you could actually read my mind, would you tell me?"

"I'd tell you anything."

"Then..." he faltered, and Chihiro all at once realized what he was needing to gather the courage to ask and there was nothing she could do to stop him, "Then... why did you lock yourself in the bathroom the other day?"

Chihiro opened her mouth to answer, and then realized that she had no answer ready to give and quickly shut it.

"You really scared me, you know. I thought that you were in there hurting yourself," he said quietly, but without any trace of anger or accusation in his voice. Despite this, Chihiro felt her cheeks flush in both embarrassment and guilt. Not only _had_ she hurt herself (albeit on accident), she had hurt her brother - more than she had realized. How could she have allowed her own internal pain to blind her to the pain of the person who was the most important in the world to her?

Her silence seemed to beckon him to continue, "And there was nothing I could do to stop it. Nothing I could do to help you. You stayed in there all night and wouldn't answer me, and I guess I-.. I felt so helpless. I have never felt so helpless before, except for when.. when Grandma was sick. There was nothing I could do to help her; nothing... And you-.. I couldn't help you either, and you were just on the other side of a door... and... I don't even know if any of that makes any sense, Chihiro, and I'm sorry."

 _He_ was sorry? Why on earth was he, of all people, sorry? Chihiro herself was the one who should be sorry. Was he really going to take on her personal failure as his own? There was no way she could allow that.

"No, Soichiro, _I'm_ sorry. I'm the one who locked you out. I'm so sorry that I scared you like that. It was stupid of me," she said softly, shivering from more than just the cold. She tightened her scarf - the purple one her mother had crocheted and given to her the Christmas before she died - against the feeling, though it did little to alleviate it.

"It's okay," he said, as an auto-response to being repeatedly made to feel like everything was his fault and that he therefore had no right to be upset with anyone. And here she, his own sister, had added onto that.

"It's not," she said in return, earning a timid gaze from him. She let out a sigh and felt her entire body sag, like she was going to sink into the ground and melt - disappear - along with the snow. Maybe that would have been better for everybody. "I don't really know what I was thinking... It's hard to explain. I guess I was so afraid that Nate could read _my_ mind, that I-..."

"But Miss Lidner was the one who came in that day."

"Right, but Nate was the one who sent her," she explained. Soichiro thought about it for a moment and then nodded in understanding. "And that's what pissed me off so much... Well, at first I was pissed off, and then I got scared, and then I was pissed off again... It all just kind of went around and around in my head until I couldn't make sense of anything anymore. It was like-.. being put inside a blender and then someone turned it on. Do you know how _frustrating_ that is?"

"Of course I do," he murmured, in a way that almost made it seem as though he were pouting, but Chihiro recognized it as defeat - desolation, even, "I feel that way _all the time_. Well, maybe not the pissed off part... but I do feel so angry about things sometimes. It's just that-.. most of the time I feel scared."

"Scared of what?"

"I don't know. Everything."

Chihiro let out a small, humorless puff of air. "Yeah? Me too." Soichiro blinked at her in surprise. "I mean, I don't know about you, but sometimes it feels like the whole world is against us."

Her brother nodded in silent, solemn understanding. Unintentionally, their talk had cleared the air between them and brought their conversation full circle. But Chihiro wasn't able to relax, yet. There was still the unanswered question of why her brother liked and trusted their oddball of a father.

"I don't think Dad is that bad, though," he said suddenly, almost as if he was now the one who supposedly possessed mind-reading abilities.

Chihiro couldn't help but grimace in response to his statement, "Why do you call him that?"

Soichiro blinked. "He is our dad."

"What about Matsuda?"

"Well, I mean.. Matsuda is our dad, too, but.. I don't know, it's complicated," he said. Chihiro remained quiet to give him a chance to explain himself further. "I'm already used to calling him 'Matsuda'. And with Dad, calling him 'Nate' or 'Near' doesn't sound right to me. And just calling him 'sir' feels too awkward..."

"But he's not been the least bit Dad-like to us this whole time."

"He's been okay to me," he said with a shrug, fiddling a little with the end of his own scarf, the same as Chihiro's except for his was a cheerful orange color. "I mean, he is a bit quiet and a bit blunt, and sometimes it's hard to tell when he's talking to you or if he's listening to you because he doesn't always look at you, but-.. I don't think he means anything by it, either. I just don't feel like he's that bad."

"But what about what Mom told us? About how it was better for all us that we stayed out of each other's lives? Don't you think she made that decision for a reason?" Even as she spoke those words, she felt a sour churning in her stomach. She had once blamed her mother for her predicaments at school, after all, and she had lain awake many nights over the last few months wishing she could take it all back.

"I don't know, Chihiro. I mean, you said that Lidner said that even _you_ misunderstood him. I-I didn't mean that in a mean way-..."

"I know."

"...-I just mean that. Well-... what if Mom was... Do you ever wonder if she was wrong?"

"No," she said, a little more shortly than she had intended, not that she could have helped it. It was bad enough that she had been questioning her own mother here and there as of late, but to hear it from her brother, too? Somehow it just felt like a huge insult.

Soichiro must have sensed this, for he hastily doubled back, "Well, maybe not _wrong_ , but what if she-.. misunderstood something, too?"

"What do you mean?"

"You once told me that Dad was paranoid. But why would he be? What is he afraid of?"

"People. That's why he keeps himself locked up and has all the security and the bodyguards to run all his errands."

"But if he is afraid of people and keeps himself locked up, then how did he and Mom meet?"

Now it was Chihiro's turn to shrug, because in her mind, how her parents met was inconsequential. It didn't matter that she had once asked herself these same questions. What mattered was that her mother had made the decision to keep her father out of their lives, and that (aside from her own personal misgivings) was all the information she needed to not want anything to do with him. But her brother was actually waiting for an answer, so she said, "Who knows? The only thing I can come up with is that they met through Grandpa or Uncle Light. I mean, they were detectives and worked with the NPA - like Matsuda - and Nate is also a detective. I don't think that's a coincidence."

"I think he must have really loved Mom, if he was afraid of people but was close to her. And Mom must have really loved him, too, because... Mom always seemed kind of afraid of people, too."

"Okay," Chihiro said, forced to follow his reasoning even with her reluctance hanging over her. But what she didn't follow was: "What does this have to do with Mom being wrong?"

"If being paranoid means being afraid of trusting anyone, then.. I think maybe there was something he didn't trust Mom with, because he didn't know he could. He hurt her, but I don't think he meant to."

"How could you possibly come to that conclusion?"

"I don't know, it's kind of like-.. the same reason Morimoto hurts us. You said his father gets drunk and beats him up at home. Maybe he's mean to us because.. that's all he knows."

"That doesn't excuse him. We get bullied at school, but you don't see _us_ going around bullying others."

Soichiro pressed his lips tightly together again, alerting Chihiro to the fact that he was again afraid of saying something that would upset her. "What?" she prompted.

"You do, though. You knocked down all of Dad's cards."

"Because he was being a creep and a control freak."

"But don't you think that further proves my point? I don't think he means to be that way, it's just the way he is. You've seen it in all his behaviors and have even said yourself that he's too 'weird' to be acting."

Chihiro started to give an outraged retort and then stopped when she realized that he was right again. And Lidner had pretty much said the same thing. How many times could she face being wrong at all, much less in such a short period of time?

"So, because of all that, you've decided to excuse everything he's done?"

Soichiro shrugged again, his trademark gesture for not wanting to accidentally offend anyone - herself in this instance. "I-I just wanted to try to understand it - understand him-.. that's all."

She sighed, "All right, I get it. So you think that he and Mom had a disagreement about something he didn't trust her with, and it hurt her enough so that she broke things off with him? You really think that?"

Soichiro was quiet again, thinking over his answer, and then nodded.

"And you really think that she was wrong to keep him out of our lives?"

"No... I honestly don't know. All I do know is that we are here now. And Dad doesn't seem bad at all to me."

Chihiro sighed again. She really wasn't liking the sound of any of this. A large part of her was urging her to denounce all of it, argue every point into the ground and leave no room for any more doubt in either her mind or her brother's mind. And what of what Matsuda thought? During their brief conversation with him over the phone, it was clear that he both knew Nate and disliked him. Could it really be mere jealousy - knowing how Matsuda had felt about her mother - or was there something more to it? If Matsuda and Nate were both detectives, and knew each other, had they worked on a case together before? Could it be that Matsuda - who was just about the most expressive person Chihiro knew - was put off by Nate's eerie and rigid behavior as well?

In addition to that, there was that talk she had had with Lidner just the day before. Apparently she and her brother shared similar opinions where it came to Nate and his eccentricities. Chihiro may still be a bit skeptical of Lidner, but she had no reason to truly doubt her brother, especially since he was always the more empathetic of the two of them. He could be a bit naive and trusting at times - too trusting - but she also knew that his heart was always in the right place.

But still, she had so many doubts, more than she knew what to do with, and it felt like she was being pulled apart by them...

Regardless of all of that, it still didn't mean that she was going to forgive Nate or give him any sort of chance. She was under no obligation to do so, save for the fact that her hands were again nagging at her to pick up her new instrument and give it a play or two once they got back. But still, giving in and playing would be admitting defeat to him, and she wasn't sure if she was ready or not to do that yet. She still had a lot to consider, and the present talk had unfortunately done nothing but add onto her doubts.

She glanced back over at her brother and noticed that he was looking supremely uncomfortable again, perhaps even more uncomfortable than she herself must have appeared. She needed some time to think, and he clearly needed the same. More importantly, they had reached the bus stop, where they would be standing among other people awaiting the arrival of said bus to take them the rest of the way home.

"You know, after we get done with our homework, if you still need help with that cube..." she said with a long-suffering sigh, as their bus rolled to a stop before them, "...then I guess I won't mind if you want to go and ask Nate about it."

Chihiro did not miss the curious little look Soichiro gave her in addition to the smile that graced his lips. But he thankfully said nothing as they both stepped on, ready to get home and out of the cold.


	22. Chapter 22

**Sorry this took so long to come out with. Busy life, yadda yadda. I was also busy laying down the foundation for chapters to come and wanted to make sure I had everything in order.**

 **Also, I apologize if the Japanese names suck. Come up with a bunch of names off the top of my head? Nobody got time for that! I used a random Japanese name generator. :P**

 **And because someone mentioned it - Matsuda will be re-entering the story, but I will not say at what point. You will have to wait and see. :)**

 **Thank you all for being so patient with me. I hope this chapter is worth the wait to you. :3**

* * *

Ueda Kaya, age 28, was found guilty of murdering her best friend, Yashima Saya, 29, and her husband Ueda Mototsune, 29, upon discovering that they were having an affair. Kaya confessed that she had known about the affair for some time. She baited them with a feigned absence, waited for the inevitable to occur, and then sneaked back in and stabbed both of them to death while they were at their most vulnerable. She appeared to feel no remorse for her actions and claimed that, in the end, Kira would absolve her because adultery was a sin.

Iwayanagi Hoshie, age 55, murdered her son Iwayanagi Kano, 20, citing that he was a lazy free-loader who refused to get a job or contribute to society in any meaningful way, thus breaking one of Kira's laws.

Aomine Toru, 22, murdered his drug-addicted cousin, Ayuzawa Joben, 21, who kept guilting him into giving him more and more money for drugs. Toru later stated that it was the best thing for him, really, because Joben hated his life anyway and Toru himself had been aiming to dedicate his own life to the higher power known as Kira. This so-called "higher power" apparently did not have the time or ability to heal the sick, the lost, or those struggling with addictions - only to punish them.

Muranaka Sukejuro, 34, murdered his friend Sone Kuri, 32, who was a known kleptomaniac. Kuri had been attending a local support group in attempt to break free of his mental affliction, but, like Toru, Sukejuro felt that his friend would never heal and that his kleptomania would only continue to grow over time, despite his best efforts to get better. "Kira would have done away with the son-of-a-bitch ages ago," he stated upon his confession, the records even going so far as to note his cold and detached self-assurance.

Orio Yoichi, 46, security guard of a popular area mall, was found guilty of stalking and murdering a man - Nakano Inejiro, 26, - who he had witnessed harassing a group of teenage girls a few weeks prior to the murder. It was later revealed that both Inejiro and the group of teenage girls were all part of a small group of actors who had been performing a social experiment to see under what circumstances someone might step in to help another person. Sadly, the sort of "help" the girls received was not what anyone could have ever expected. Yoichi would admit to no wrong-doing, stating that he was only enacting Kira's will and that his victim and girls should not have been pretending to be under such duress.

And then, debatably more tragic, there were the suicides and everything in-between.

Umemura Chiyu, age 16 and top of her class, killed herself upon discovering that she was pregnant. Her parents did not learn of the pregnancy until after her death and the subsequent autopsy. The only allusion to her reasoning behind such an extreme measure was a small declaration along the side of one of her school notebooks - _Heal me, Kira._

Araya Eizo, 20, was found dead by an overdose of over-the-counter painkillers. Among his struggles with depression, he had also struggled his way through school and received notice that he was about to fail out of university. Rather than face being a drag on society, he decided it would be best to eliminate himself. These were his own words, found in a note written in which he repeatedly asked Kira for forgiveness. No mentions of his parents or other loved ones were mentioned in the letter.

Jin Takanori, 37, confessed to manslaughter via suicide note. He claimed to be responsible for the hit-and-run killing of Kuroki Ikumu, 7, who had been struck by a previously unknown motorist while walking home from school. In his note, he left a detailed description of the incident, which police were able to match up to their own records. He also implored Kira to forgive him.

Arai Yasuo, 23, admitted to his parents that he had been molesting his younger sister, Mae, on and off for the last ten years, before dropping himself off his 8-story-high apartment building. Upon the revelation of these events to the community, Mae, aged 18, feeling a deep sense of shame and remorse, also took her own life, although she did so by hanging herself from the light fixture in her bedroom. Both siblings had been reported as muttering to themselves that they were too filthy to be accepted into Kira's kingdom; it is believed that their suicides were done in the hopes that Kira would forgive them.

There were many, many more such cases, and they were all on display on the dozens of monitors around the room. From his usual spot on the floor, surrounded by an impressive array of K-Nex structures, Near sat quietly observing each of these screens where they were positioned around the room. The monitors and their amassed soft glow provided enough light with which Near could continue to build upon his structures, which featured thoroughly-built amusement park, complete with a lengthy roller-coaster and a ferris wheel. Bathed in the monitors' glow, the amusement park came to life in an almost eerie, haunted way - like an abandoned fairground.

Near was neither bothered by this nor by the gory details on the monitors that surrounded him. What did bother him was the common denominator. Among the things these cases had in common were the stunning brutality, the pettiness, the oftentimes lack of remorse... and the fact that each of the murderers and suicide victims were religious attendees of the newly-established Church of Kira.

Originating from the United States, the Church's founder - Gabriel Koenig, although he was going by the name of Lazarus to his congregation - moved his church to Japan to feel closer to Kira, seeing as he had been born there. Many had flocked with him, and just as many had been added to the flock in the two years since his exodus from the United States. Also within that two years, the rate of murders and suicides in the area had sky-rocketed. Many had left notes, while others had given less obvious final declarations of their devotion to Kira, but every single one of them had at some point attended that church. And here, displayed on the dozens of monitors around the room, was the irrefutable proof.

This irrefutable proof of the increase in murders and suicides was, unfortunately, not irrefutable proof of the Church's direct involvement. Near could prove, without a doubt, that each of the cases could be linked to the Church, but that did not mean that the Church itself was guilty of anything. This coupled with the fact that the Japanese government - like many others - had made it clear that they would make no move against Kira (and therefore his religious organizations), left Near with very little ability to do anything. The local and national police were also left just as powerless - their only power being the ability to pursue and convict the actual perpetrators involved, rather than being able to investigate the church itself. Near was very much (sorely, bitterly) aware of this fact.

But luckily for him, he had the ability to operate outside of the local jurisdiction.

"I don't understand how that idea makes much sense," argued Lidner after Near announced out of the blue that he would be sending her in undercover. "What can be done, exactly? We can't keep tabs on everyone who has listened to Lazarus' sermons."

"I am aware," Near sighed, moving to place a small, finger puppet-sized replica of Lidner at the entrance of a K-Nex version of the House of Mirrors carnival maze he had spent the afternoon perfecting, "But we can gather more information about the attendees of the Church and at least make a small impact locally."

"But that is something that the local police handle already," she said, gesturing around the room, "As you can see."

"Are you saying that you _don't_ want to try to prevent more deaths?"

"No, of course not..." There was a distinctive pause, in which Near understood that there was something Lidner wanted to say but was reluctant to do so. He had an idea of what it was and thought for a moment that she would move past it and say something else, but then: "This just seems an awful lot like chasing after ghosts, that's all."

Chasing after ghosts. So she had phrased it differently than Near had been expecting, but nonetheless that was exactly how it felt. Chasing after ghosts in a House of Mirrors. Or rather, chasing after _a_ ghost - Kira. More than a decade had passed since Yagami's death and the echoes of his work continued to reverberate throughout the world's societies. Maybe they always would. Whereas it was quite easy to kill a person, killing an idea was impossible, especially one that relied on faith. An idea was what Kira had been born as, what he had died as, and what he now perpetuated as. It was exhausting, and Near had to admit that it did feel useless at times, but he still had an obligation to meet Kira at every turn, to oppose his views and the ideas he had set forth. It was his obligation as L, as a detective, and, simply, as himself.

"I agree with Near," came Rester's voice nearby. Near caught sight of the man standing close to him - almost protectively - as he had done ever since Near had first hired him. He never would have been able to express it in a meaningful way, but he did feel a certain appreciation for both the man's presence and his unending loyalty to him.

"I'm also on board with this idea," Gevanni piped in, "We need to actually see what is taking place within the Church, get a feel for their inner community."

"Easy for you two to say, not being the ones who are going to be sent into a house of lunatics," Lidner said with a sigh.

"At least you were never instructed to touch a notebook that might summon an immortal death-god to kill you," Gevanni countered with a slight smirk, in spite of how terrified he had been at the time.

"At least _you_ were never sent to be the bodyguard of a crazed celebrity who was in love with the serial killer who owned one of the those notebooks," she said with a dry smirk right back at him. She then turned her attention back onto her boss, who had been listening with disinterest to the sardonic exchange, "Which brings me to my next point, Near. What if someone recognizes me?"

Of course, Near had already reached that same conclusion - that someone might recognize her from her days as bodyguard to the former Voice of Kira, NHN's Kiyomi Takada. He was also prepared to respond accordingly. "There is a high probability that at least one of the attendees will recognize you, yes," he said while moving on to continue construction of the K-Nex roller-coaster cars. "In fact, I theorize that Lazarus himself will recognize and approach you."

"You don't think he will try to hire me on as his personal bodyguard, do you?" his female agent queried, sounding somewhere between put-out and concerned.

"He will not," replied Near with perfect calm. "The man tried to commit suicide by slashing his own throat. And then, rather than giving credit to the doctors who saved his life, he attributed his survival to having been spared by Kira. Hiring a bodyguard now would only undermine the image he has gone to great lengths to present for himself, of having ultimate faith in Kira."

"And if you're wrong?"

"I'm not. As a growing public figure, he has probably already had dozens of offers. All he will want to do is offer his respect for your past service to Kira and will view your presence as proof of his being 'blessed' by his god. However," he continued with a small sigh. As if that wasn't frustrating enough to have to placate his agent, he was currently having trouble locating a connector piece for two of the roller-coaster cars and was putting at least half of his focus into rifling through a pile of pieces in search of it. "If, for some reason, he does approach you for such services, you are to accept the offer and we will revisit the circumstances at that time."

Near saw his two male agents nodding in agreement, but something seemed to still be troubling Lidner. He had already gone over everything at great length - or as great a length as he possibly could at the moment - so what could it be? He gave her a sidelong glance, which seemed to be what she needed to spit it out.

"What about the children?"

At this, Near stole a short glance at his other two agents, noting similar looks of dawning concern. He then turned his attention back to the K-Nex pieces (Damn it, where the hell was the piece he needed?) and said, "They need not know of our investigation, just as they need not know of any of the others. And Rester and Gevanni will be here to answer to their calls while you are away."

"No, I mean... What about their safety?" she said, and even in the half-light, Near could see the genuine concern etched into her expression. "I'm going to be heading into some seriously dangerous territory and there is a high likelihood that I will be recognized due to my past services to Kira. If something goes wrong..."

"That's very true," said Rester, "We need a plan for the children in case Lidner is discovered, or even some pre-emptive safety measures."

"Yeah, maybe Lidner could teach them some self-defense moves, just in case," Gevanni added.

"Or maybe we ought to have them escorted to and from school," Rester suggested.

"I don't think the kids would be too thrilled with that idea, especially Chihiro..." countered Lidner.

A short pause.

And then from Rester, of all people: "Near..." he said with a great amount of hesitation, "I really hate to say this, but-.. Have you checked with Roger to see if he is ready to accept the children yet?"

For some reason that Near could not even explain to himself, the Commander's suggestion (never mind the almost mortified look on Lidner's face at the same idea) set off something uncomfortable inside of him. The answer was _no_ , he had not contacted Roger to see if he was ready to accept the children yet. He didn't really feel it was necessary at that point for a myriad of reasons, most of them he didn't want to bother explaining at the moment. It seemed he did not have to anyway - his irritable silence gave him away.

"Rester is right," said Lidner, sounding tired. "I personally don't like the idea of sending the children away, after all the progress that has been made with them," - Near felt his fingers twitch, because in is mind, hardly any progress had been made and he still didn't know why it even mattered to him if the plan all along was to have them sent away - "But since this is concerning their safety, it might just be our best option."

Nothing about any of this sat right with Near. He knew that if it came down to it, Roger would expedite the process somehow and receive them sooner, but-...

But he did not want to be talking about this right now.

"There is no need to worry about the children," he said softly, although he was growing more and more frustrated both by the direction of their discussion and his inability to find the missing K-Nex piece, "They have the best personal protection; they are under close supervision; and their phones are closely tracked and monitored. As long as no one _else_ interrupts the safety measures we have in place for them, there is nothing to worry about."

Apparently his small snipe at Lidner for turning off the cameras in the children's rooms did not deter her, because she then said, "Why are you dragging your feet on sending them to Wammy's? Wouldn't it be better to do it sooner rather than later?"

"Nothing is being _dragged_ , Lidner, particularly not my feet," he said with a small, barely-audible huff. "Roger is not yet ready to receive them."

"How can you know that? Have you checked in with him?"

"There is no need for me to. He knows to contact me as soon as he is ready."

"Then what do you suggest we do about the children?"

"Nothing needs to be done."

"Still, shouldn't we at the very least tell them to be on the lookout for any suspicious characters?"

"Their mother was murdered," he said, realizing too late that his tone held a sharp edge, "Everyone is already a suspicious character to them. And as you might have noticed, they are both incredibly observant of their surroundings as a result."

"Yes, and the man who murdered their mother is still out there somewhere. That should be even more reason to tell them what's going on."

"Sayu was not stalked or targeted, and neither will be the children," Near threw back, focusing with added vigor on finding that K-Nex piece. "The Church is only concerned with punishing those who are doing wrong in the eyes of their god, not punishing innocent children."

Finally, feeling an immense sense of victory, he located the missing piece. But as his fingers came into contact with it, he struck by a thought so profound, he almost dropped the piece back into the pile. The horror of the thought shook him at his core, to the point where he almost felt like his heart had stopped - certainly an uncommon feeling for him.

His eyes flickered back up to the monitors around the room, still showing their grim contents, and suddenly his argument with Lidner seemed a million miles away. A series of petty, albeit tragic, crimes, all committed in Kira's name... Sayu had been a single, unwed mother... Could this be it, after all this time? Could this really be the missing piece...? Could the Church of Kira be responsible for her death...?

Near felt a deep, burning anger rise up from within him and suddenly he wished he could bear witness to Yagami's death all over again. As if dealing with the fallout of his megalomaniacal achievements was not enough-... If this proved to be true, he honestly did not know if he could handle the sheer injustice of it all.

Near forced himself to go back over her case in his mind and think about all that he knew. One of the things that stood out to him was the way her body had been dumped. It told him that it was someone who did not care if her body was found, and that reasoning made itself clear by the fact that the only physical evidence that had been left behind was the bullet that had been left inside her head (which, in and of itself, was very telling, considering the fact that guns were not allowed in Japan). Whoever it was that had killed her had done an (admittedly) excellent job of making sure none of his DNA was left behind. He had even used a condom. In Near's mind, this lack of any physical evidence to go on meant that this person had at least some knowledge of forensics, or at least of some of the kinds of things that police may use as evidence.

Near's initial thought upon examining her case was that she had, in fact, been targeted for some reason - mostly, he could admit to himself, because he could not fathom anyone just happening upon her in the late evening while she was taking out the rubbish. It seemed too coincidental. The fact that she was raped while a condom was used could indicate premeditation - or, at the very least, preparation. And there was the fact that both the rape and the shooting had taken place in a private location, meaning the killer had some kind of set-up going. And he could not have simply snatched her and dragged her away. He had to have a transport vehicle of some sort, and a way of keeping her hidden from view while transporting her to his private location - again leading Near to believe the killer to be a person of law enforcement, with the possibility of having been able to hide her in the back seat with tinted windows.

All of these things along with the fact that an item was stolen from her could indicate a serial rapist who was keeping trophies of his victims.

But...

...No other crimes of the sort had taken place within a reasonable vicinity for that to be the case. If her abduction, rape, and murder were the result of a serial rapist and murderer, and her body had been left out in the open to be easily found, then logic suggested that they would have found other victims just like her. The fact that her case matched no others said that this was a lone incident, which had then brought him to the same conclusion as the Japanese police - it was an unfortunate (despicable, heinous) crime that had taken place simply because Sayu had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. There was no doubt in Near's mind that the murderer lived in the area, or at least was somewhat familiar with the area, but without any physical evidence or any other cases to link it to, he was left in the dark.

The whole thing - every single, horrible detail - left more than just a bad taste in his mouth. It left him with the terrible feeling that she would never receive justice, that her case would go on unsolved, and her (their) children would never know if the monster who had killed their mother was off the streets.

Only now...

Now he was faced with the uncomfortable thought that there might actually be more to it than he had initially thought. Rather than being the victim of a random, albeit "clean", crime, could Sayu actually be the victim of the religious fanaticism that had taken hold? He couldn't deny the similarities now that her case was juxtaposed with the others currently lining the walls of his command center. A single, unwed mother, murdered, in an area where crimes against anyone deemed a "sinner" had been steadily increasing over the last few years? After everything else about her case being all over the place, having a connection as strong as this was almost too good to be true.

In fact, it _was_ too good to be true, despite his excitement over the possible lead. Deep down, Near knew it couldn't be linked for the two reasons that set her case apart from the others - the fact that she was raped and the fact that her ring had been stolen. While these two things could or could not indicate a serial rapist, they certainly did not indicate the work of a religious crime. In none of the other victims had such events taken place - the victim had simply been killed and the murderer had either confessed to the crime later or they had been caught, and in either case they had admitted to doing it in Kira's name. Although Near could elaborate for days about the inconsistencies and hypocrisies of any religious cults, particularly ones involving murders, the facts did not lie - none of the other area murders committed on a religious basis involved rape and/or theft. Why would someone kill another in Kira's name and then turn around and commit a crime his or herself? Never mind the fact that murder itself was a crime, but Near knew that in the twisted minds of these zealots, the term "murder" was debatable if it was done in their god's name.

Still... Near could not bring himself to flat out dismiss the possible connection, however slim. He knew that if it had been any other case, any other person, he would be able to dismiss the connection entirely, but this was Sayu... This was _Sayu_... The woman who still held is heart, however much it had been crushed by her actions. He _had_ to explore every possible angle. He _had_ to find justice for her. Justice their children. Justice for himself.

"Near?"

The sound of Lidner's voice brought him back out of his thoughts. He felt like he must have been clenching his fists in the interim - he could feel the prickling indentation left in his palm by the K-Nex piece in his hand. It stung, but it all at once gave him a sense of perfect clarity.

Without missing a beat, Near used the piece to connect the two roller-coaster cars and said, "I will contact Roger this evening. In the meantime," he continued, before any of his team had a chance to inquire further about the children, "Agent Lidner, while you are investigating the Church, I will need for you to keep an eye out for anyone who might be involved in any kind of security or law enforcement work, either presently or in the past."

"Okay... Are you going to explain what this is all about?"

"No." All three of his agents blinked at his blunt response, as Near, with a series of clicks on his laptop, changed the monitors around the room to show the outside security cameras and other harmless data in lieu of the dozens of Church deaths. "It seems we will be having a visitor shortly."

At that, the trio moved behind him to view his laptop and see what he was talking about. On the other side of the monitor, the children had just finished up their homework. His son was leaving his room with the Rubik's cube in hand. His daughter, on the other hand, was left sitting by herself.


	23. Chapter 23

Hello everyone. I am so sorry it has been so long since I updated... I just wanted to reach out and let everyone know that until further notice, this fic on hiatus. I simply do not have the time to write anything at this current point in time. I really wish I did. Any free time I do have, I just can't seem to get any words out. I am so so sorry and I do hope you all will forgive me.

In the meantime, in the event that I do not ever return to write more, I would be more than happy to share my thoughts and ideas and everything that happens later in the story. Also, not that anyone will be, but if anyone is interested in adopting this story, please feel free to ask.

I very badly want to share more of Near's adventures with his children, because I have so much planned for them, but things going on in my life are in the way right now. More than anything, I want you all to know that I sincerely appreciate those who have stuck around and enjoyed the story so far - I worry that I have let you folks down the most. Thank you again for all your kind words and feedback. I hope I will be able to return to this story again soon.

-Thursday


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